Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to the Future
by SHSL Slacker
Summary: When an axew lands in the pokemon world with no trace of who she was, she (reluctantly) partners up with a snivy. Although she doesn't know her purpose in here yet, she'll be here for quite some time... while going on some of the most bizarre adventures ever with her partner, generally speaking. (Moemons/Gijinkas, based off PMD: Gates to Infinity.)
1. Of Meetings and Mountains

**I really don't have an excuse for this. OC Form and other miscellanous things at the bottom.**

* * *

_Help… us!_

_Help us!_

_O Great God, send us your blessing!_

_Save us from this unholy demise!_

_…_

_You are… our future._

_Please… save us._

* * *

"– Ah!"

She wakes up in a start, jolting up to a sitting position. Looking back, she sees that she had been lying on the rough ground. Slowly, she stood up, and observed her surroundings.

She was… in a field, yes? There were a few clumps of grass here and there, but the rocky surface she had previously been lying on took up most of the area in the field. Trees were scattered here and there, most of them having lost their leaves and looking sad and barren.

"Where… am I?" she asked aloud.

What did she know? Those were the first things she needed to confirm so that she could use those to answer her questions.

Technically… she knew she was in a field. But she needed to know specifically where she was if she wanted to go to somewhere she knew…

_That's right… but… somewhere I know? Is there any place I know that might be close to a field?_

No. There wasn't. Nothing automatically came to mind.

… Nor did she know her own name, or her identity…

She didn't know herself… had she lost her memory?

She realized she looked quite dumb simply standing there and staring at the area in front of her, so she quickly started looking around more. Firstly, she needed to recover her lost memories… if she didn't know herself, there would be no hope in trying to find out where she was or how she had gotten here.

But no matter how much she racked her brain, nothing came to mind. Not a name, a place, even a number or some vague clue she could use to answer even one question…

_Future._

One word. The only thing she could identify as being worth thinking about was the word 'future'.

_Is there something remotely interesting about the word 'future'? Maybe I need to go to a fortune-telling booth and have my future laid out before my eyes… then again, I do know I never believed in those things…_

_… __Hold on._

She remembered something unconsciously. In her life, she didn't like her fortune told, was it? How come? And how did she know that?

_… __Nothing…_

Once again, her mind refused to tell her anything else. Maybe she just needed to think about the word 'future' once more… perhaps it could help her remember more from her wiped memories.

"Huh…? I didn't think anyone would be here. … Who are you?"

"– Ah!"

Instinctively, she turned around and tried to swing her fist at the offending person behind her. However, instead of punching him, her nails glowed split seconds before impacting with the person's face. Her palm opened forcibly, and she suddenly felt her fingernails scratching against skin, drawing thin lines of blood.

"Oww!" Stumbling backwards, the green-haired boy clutched his face, trying to slow the flow of blood. "What'd you do that for?! I was just asking you a question!"

She narrowed her eyes at the boy for a moment, before backing away. "You snuck up on me."

"That doesn't give you the excuse to scratch me!" He retorted, before sighing and wiped the rest of the blood off his face. "Whatever. Who are you?"

"I should be asking the same to you," she replied.

He rolled his eyes. "Sheesh… are these how all axews act…?" he muttered to himself. A word in there caused her ears to perk up, however, and she hesitantly neared him.

"What… did you just call me?" she asked slowly, speaking to him as if he were a child.

The boy crossed his arms. "An axew… please don't tell me you don't even know what pokemon you are?"

"P… Pokemon?" There were so many unfamiliar terms he was using it made her drop her guard for a moment. "What's that?"

"What?!" He exclaimed, stepping backwards in surprise. "You don't even know what you are?! Do you have some kind of super-extreme amnesia or what?"

"I… I think so," she responded. "I can't remember my own name, or even any real details about myself… you just called me a pokemon, right? An axew… what are those?"

The boy shrugged. "Well… I don't really know much about them either. You're the first axew I've ever really met… I've heard rumors about what they look like, though, and that they're really rare and stronger than what one would expect from a Grade One evolutionary stage."

"Grade One… evolutionary stage?" she repeated slowly, twisting the words in her tongue as if tasting them. They were so… foreign.

"Yeah." He nodded. "Most pokemon have evolutions, see… they, like, evolve into different pokemon once certain conditions are met. Some have one, while others have two. The rest don't evolve at all. I'm a snivy, and you're an axew, so we're both at our first evolutionary stage. Um…" he hesitated. "… I think axews evolve into a fraxure. That's what one calls a Grade Two evolutionary stage, since that's an axew's first evolution."

"I see…"

There was a silence between the two of them as they both tried to digest the new information they had learned; the boy meeting a super-amnesiac for the first time, and the girl learning about of the pokemon world.

"Oh, yeah." The boy lifted his head slightly. "Uh, I guess we have to introduce ourselves. I'm Shido, by the way. I think I told you earlier, but I'm a snivy." He paused, and then smirked, crossing his arms. "… The strongest snivy ever, just so you know."

She rolled her eyes. "Keep dreaming, punk. I don't remember my name, so… I don't really have something to call myself. You did tell me I'm an axew, so…"

"I'm not calling you axew all the time," Shido replied instantly. "That would be weird. Don't you have anything you remember?"

The axew remained quiet for some time, before the word came to mind once again. "Hm… 'future'. That's the only word that I can remember, for some reason… anything else just doesn't have a 'ring' to it. Like… it's not familiar. Or… it doesn't have any real meaning to me… just 'future'."

"Interesting…" Shido tapped his chin. "What about we call you Mirai? It sounds good on you, doesn't it? Mirai the super-amnesiac axew… even though you forgot your past, you have a bright future ahead of you!" He grinned, spreading his arms to emphasize the point. "Like you're the shining beacon to guide everyone from the depths of despair towards the bright future… you'll become the concept of the future itself!"

When he saw the axew's surprised expression, he quickly recomposed himself and cleared his throat, clearly embarrassed by his out-of-character moment. "… Well, it was just a suggestion. If you have something better, we could–"

"No, uh…" she fiddled with her thumbs nervously. "I… I like it. Mirai, huh… the concept of the future, the super-amnesiac axew… I guess it does sound kinda nice." She gave a small smile, like she wasn't used to the idea of smiling, and extended her hand for a greeting. "Then, I'm Mirai, an axew. The first and best axew you'll ever see."

Shido stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, before returning the smile with a smirk. "Nice to meet you, Mirai."

* * *

They sat around and talked a bit, but once Shido saw the position of the sun after some time, he jolted up and started freaking out.

"I-It's almost time! I have to go!" he shouted, looking almost stressed. Mirai raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong?"

"The meeting!" he yelled. "I have an appointment to make with a pokemon from ahead of here… and I have twenty minutes to get there!" he winced. "Then again, we're not too far from where I need to go… but the path ahead looks pretty dangerous…" he sighed. "I guess I'll just have to brave it… thanks for chatting with me today, Mirai. It was real fun."

"Hah? What are you talking about? It's like I'm not going with you," the axew exclaimed, standing up and dusting her plaid green skirt. "Whether you like it or not, I'm coming with you, punk. Actually, you should like it. Be honored the great Mirai even bothered to– gah!"

Before she could finish her overly long holier-than-thou speech, Mirai was scooped up in a hug by the snivy, Shido squeezing her with every ounce of strength he had. The axew started kicking Shido's midsection, but the green-haired boy didn't seem to even care.

"Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" he yelled in a single breath. "I owe you my life, Mirai! Now let's go, no time to waste!"

"Hey, w-wait! S-Shido– ah, dammit!"

* * *

_Ragged Mountain – Western Entrance_

"There's a bridge not too far from here, we can make it from there if we're quiet– EHH?!"

Shido jumped upwards in shock as he stared at the broken bridge in front of him. Carefully, Mirai circled him and took a look at the rocks below the former bridge. "Looks like a rock slide just happened… that's probably what broke the bridge." She turned to look back at the mortified snivy. "Guess we'll have to take the caves to get to the other side, huh?"

The boy remained shock-still for a while, before taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh. "… Looks like it. Umm, Mirai, do you know about Mystery Dungeons?"

"Those are?"

"… Oh, no…" Shido sighed. "I'll tell you about them while we travel. Follow me."

The snivy led Mirai inside one of the entrances to the cave. The moment she stepped inside, the axew felt a buzzing sound in her head, followed by a hazy vision. Dizzy, she took a few stumbling strides, and eventually, the buzz faded and her vision went back to normal. When she looked around, she saw that Shido was patiently waiting for her beside her.

"W-What was that?" she asked. "Maybe this place is dangerous… let's get out of here." Saying that, Mirai turned around to go back to the entrance, but…

"I-It's not there?" she exclaimed in surprise. "H-How…? But I was sure…" No matter how many times or which direction she looked, she couldn't find the entrance she was certain had been near her before. "What happened?"

"This, Mirai, is a Mystery Dungeon." Shido turned back, observing the twisting paths ahead of him. "Mystery Dungeons used to be pretty rare way before the pokemon world was like this. Now, with more and more Mystery Dungeons showing up, pokemon are becoming more restless and more pokemon are turning evil. Mystery Dungeons emit this kind of negativity from them that causes all pokemon that enter them to lose hope…" he paused. "Since you felt the dizziness, you're qualified to be a Team Pokemon, I guess."

"Team… Pokemon?"

"Mhm. Hey, over here." As Shido and Mirai walked, the snivy continued explaining. "Four or more pokemon can form a team to take on Mystery Dungeons and have adventures in them and the like. Those pokemon are special and are often called 'Team Pokemon', since they can enter a Mystery Dungeon without feeling like their very life is being sapped away from them."

"Other pokemon that aren't Team Pokemon are called Wild Pokemon. They live in Mystery Dungeons and, since they have been fully consumed by the despair Mystery Dungeons give out, they attack any pokemon they see, Wild Pokemon or Team Pokemon. Although… there's this rumor that certain Team Pokemon have a special ability to emit hope and 'cleanse' Wild Pokemon from their despair, enabling those Wild Pokemon to become Team Pokemon. Cool, huh? Then, those newly-changed Team Pokemon can join the other pokemon's Team."

"Another thing about Mystery Dungeons is that, well, they're really unpredictable. Whenever you enter one, the layout, items and money you find, and sometimes even the Wild Pokemon that dwell in there, change. For example, you're exploring a Mystery Dungeon, yeah? And it has so few paths that it's so easy to find the exit. But the next time you go in it, there may be a thousand different paths to take that it'll take more than a day to get through it!"

"Speaking of…" Shido paused in his explanation for a while, and drawing a sword with a leaf-shaped handle out of thin air. Mirai jumped in surprise, causing her to hit her head on the rocky ceiling. Focusing on his target, the snivy then stabbed the tip of his sword in the middle of the large boulder in front of him. It took ten whole seconds, but spiderweb-like cracks came from the center and eventually caused the boulder to crumble into dust, revealing an exit. Shido turned around to smirk proudly at the gaping axew. "C'mon! We can get out this way."

_Ragged Mountain – Western Plateau_

"We were really lucky to not run into any Wild Pokemon there, but it's probably because of the rock slide a while ago…" Shido said, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Wild Pokemon can't really differentiate sounds as well as other pokemon. That's why it's easy to scare them away with loud noises." He glanced at the sun's position once more, before crying out in surprise. "I-It's almost the meeting time! Pick up the pace, Mirai; the Wild Pokemon are definitely gonna start coming now!"

The axew did as told, rushing out of the cave and feeling the familiar dizzy sensation, but less serious than before. Once it faded, she took a look around and found that they were on a plateau just above the area they had been in earlier. To the east, there was a similar plateau, and an entrance to another cave that probably went downwards, but there seemed to be no way across it…

"… What are…? What are you doing, punk?" Mirai asked as she neared the snivy. He was pushing hard against a tall tree trunk at the edge of the plateau to the right.

"I'm trying to make this fall so we can cross on it to the other side!" he replied, grunting as he pushed harder against the rough bark.

Mirai sighed, rolling her eyes. "Oh, for the love of… get out of the way, punk." Saying so, she pushed Shido away from the trunk and eyed the offending object with annoyance.

_Concentrate… concentrate on it,_ she told herself, although the voice in her head didn't sound like hers. _Feel the anger building in you. This tree trunk, this _stupid _tree trunk prevents you and Shido from letting you cross to the other side. How dare it, huh? How dare it defy you? You are the one and only, the great Mirai! How _dare _it!_

And then all of a sudden, she felt white hot flames boiling in her throat, threatening to spill out of her mouth, burning her throat, but she didn't. She didn't let them out and she gathered every shred of anger she held against the tree and–

_Let it _burn_._

She shut her eyes and opened her mouth as big as possible, and a torrent of aqua blue flames rushed out of her mouth like a tidal wave. The flames slammed against the tree, and it toppled over ridiculously easy. Surprisingly, the torrent of fire did not completely engulf the tree; it stopped where it was and disappeared into thin air, leaving only a few flickers of blue fire behind as those, too, faded away into nothingness.

Mirai took a deep breath and let it out, closing her mouth and breathing heavily. She had no idea what she had just done, but it looked like it had worked perfectly.

"W… Whoa."

Oh, yes. She had forgotten she had an audience.

"I… I never knew you actually knew how to fight!" Shido exclaimed. "That Dragon Rage move you just used… damn, it was _awesome_."

She raised an eyebrow, still panting. "… Thanks." Shido? Complimenting her? Blasphemy.

He seemed to have realized his mistake as well, as his face flushed and he quickly crossed his arms, looking away. "I-I mean… it was nothing! I bet any other Dragon-type could do the same. Huh. You're just showing off." He strutted sassily on the tree trunk, crossing over to the other side easily. "Hurry up, Mirai! No time to lose!"

The axew smirked. "Impressed, aren't you?"

"K-Keep quiet! Now come over already, would you?"

_Ragged Mountain – Eastern Plateau_

As Shido led the way, with Mirai quietly following from behind, a soft noise could be heard from all around them. Shido abruptly stopped, causing the axew to bump into his back. Mirai opened her mouth to ask, but Shido raised a finger to his mouth, indicating silence.

The sound wasn't very soft by now; in fact, it was getting louder and louder. It sounded like an intense beating of wings – _flap, flap, flap_ – and it unnerved Mirai, who wasn't used to it.

"It's gotta be a Flying-type pokemon," Shido muttered. "This sound is…"

"– HNYAAAAH!"

As if summoned from the very depths of an abyss, a blue-and-white blur zoomed towards them, slamming straight on Shido. The snivy yelled, toppling over from its sheer force, causing Mirai to fall backwards as well. The mysterious pokemon snarled, saliva dribbling down its chin as the bat-like wings sprouting from its back beat loudly. It rose into the air – _flap, flap, flap_ went its wings – and narrowed its eyes at the both of them as Mirai pushed the disconcerted snivy off of her.

"What the hell is that?!" she shouted. Shido struggled back to his feet, obviously pained from the sudden impact.

He remained silent for a while, simply eyeing the flying pokemon, then replied, "… A Wild Pokemon… a woobat, to be more specific… ugh, no wonder that thing hits hard." He gritted his teeth. "Mirai, think you can handle this? You probably need some practice against a moving target, anyway…"

The axew hesitated, before nodding and turning her gaze back to the woobat. It had short and poofy blue hair, and a simple one-piece blue dress. Normal, she supposed. The one thing that stood out (besides its wings, of course) was the strange circular item she was holding; it looked like a mask, with a black heart on it, but…

Before Mirai could think about it any longer, the woobat had swooped downwards and slammed its entire body against the axew. She yelped in pain and hurriedly pushed the Wild Pokemon off of her, before backing away so that her back was against the rock wall.

_I need a weapon_, she thought. _Like Shido's sword. But… how do I get one?_

She looked down at her pale, thin arms, thinking that if she thought about it really hard, the weapons would be summoned or something. However, nothing happened, and she could already see the woobat growing more and more agitated in the air, its beating wings getting even louder. Gritting her teeth, Mirai tried to summon the fires in her throat again, but the familiar heat didn't come either.

The woobat let out a loud, angry cry, before diving straight towards Mirai, her wings glowing brightly. The axew dove out of the way just in time, rolling to the right just as the woobat crashed onto the area she had been standing on seconds before. Mirai steadied herself on her feet and, frustrated that her tactics weren't working, simply dashed towards the woobat and attempted to punch her, since her back was exposed.

However, like before, her palm forcibly opened and her nails glowed white, before they slashed against the woobat's back. The sound of cloth tearing echoed in the cave chamber, and the woobat screeched in pain. It flew back up, hissing and spitting at her, before the Wild Pokemon's heart mask suddenly started glowing a light purple. Mirai felt a vibration in her head; soft, but there. She winced but shook it off and jumped up to the woobat, about to scratch it once more, but then –

"Mirai! To your right!"

Shido's warning caused the axew to instinctively change directions and she ended up doing a messy backflip and crashing onto the ground behind her. When her vision cleared, she saw another Wild Pokemon; this one looked a lot more ladylike than the woobat, albeit, it still had a crazed look in its eyes. Growling, it advanced on Mirai steadily, and took the axew by surprise as it slammed into her all of a sudden and clamped its teeth on her arm, sinking its teeth into her flesh.

Mirai screamed – _I am taking a bath after this for the love of all that is holy _– and kicked the pokemon off, wiping the blood off of her arm and standing back up unsteadily. Beside her, Shido was armed with his sword and eyeing the two pokemon carefully.

"I'll take care of the minccino," he whispered. "The woobat's all yours."

She nodded; the minccino was probably the new Wild Pokemon that had appeared. Readying herself, she observed her surroundings for a bit – the chamber they were in was rocky and craggy, with several rocks jutting upwards from the ground. Along with that, the chamber wasn't very big; it was less a chamber than simply a slightly wider path.

But… this was good enough for the inexperienced axew. She eyed the woobat carefully and tried predicting its movements from her past experience – she knew it was impatient and was prone to dive-bombing attacks. That heart mask of its probably had some secret ability hidden in it; otherwise, why would it carry the mask around everywhere? She had to be cautious around it as well.

Mirai leapt on one of the rocks and used that as leverage, taking off and latching on to the woobat. It screeched and tried kicking the axew off, but Mirai held on tight, biting onto the Wild Pokemon's arm and scratching at the woobat's face as violently as possible. Its wings flapped intensely, desperately trying to keep their user in the air, but the both of them plummeted down to the bottom anyway.

The woobat flipped the both of them over so Mirai would hit the ground first; its wings now limp and only beating weakly, tired from so much activity. The axew gritted her teeth, and all of a sudden, jabbed her two fingers in the woobat's stomach. With a howl of pain, it dropped its guard, allowing Mirai to re-flip them and use the Wild Pokemon's body as leverage and jump towards the nearest rock, landing unsteadily and having to grasp the tip of it to keep from falling over.

When the bat pokemon crashed to the ground, it created an average sized cloud of smoke that obscured vision amongst the other fighters; Shido and the minccino. Obviously, the minccino wasn't used to navigating without a clear vision, so it growled and stumbled through the smoke, attempting to feel its way towards its enemy.

Shido, on the other hand, wasn't used to the sudden block of vision as well. However, he knew better than to try and stumble blindly through the dust and lithely jumped up, landing on a jutting rock higher than normal. There, he could clearly see a disturbance in the cloud of smoke – _must be the minccino_ – and, clutching his sword, traced its probable path and leapt.

He felt a rush of air as he fell into the cloud of smoke, and then colliding with something. There was a loud, offended howl, and he felt something crash onto his side. The smoke had relatively cleared by now, so Shido could see the panting minccino as it started charging for another tackle attack. The snivy quickly jumped over it with surprising agility and, shocked, the Wild Pokemon's focus was lost. It swiveled around to try charging once again, but Shido intercepted its dash and stabbed the tip of his sword right next to its stomach, near the liver. The minccino cried out in pain, and Shido pulled his sword out of its body. Doubling over, it howled and convulsed for a moment in a pool of its own blood, before going still.

Nearby, Mirai winced at the bloody sight. "Does this… really happen often?" she asked as Shido's sword dissipated into thin air.

He nodded reluctantly. "For some reason, Wild Pokemon are getting more and more aggressive than the norm… it probably has something to do with the Mystery Dungeons popping up all over as well." He looked away with a reminiscing look in his eyes, before shaking his head. "Let's go. We're nearly there. Oh and… you… were kinda good back there."

"H… Huh?"

The snivy covered his face with both hands, clearly embarrassed. "N-Nothing! Now, come on! Let's go already!"

"Alright, alright… don't get your panties in a twist, punk."

* * *

_Ragged Mountain – Eastern Entrance_

"Ahh! Sunlight…!" Shido cried out in joy, collapsing on the sandy ground at the same time. "I'm so tired and hungry… ahh, I want to sleep on a soft bed…"

Mirai let out a tired sigh of relief as well as she leaned on the cave wall. "Finally… I thought it'd never end…"

The snivy nodded in agreement, before his eyes slowly drifted upwards. The sun had already started to set, something that caused his eyes to snap open and his body to regain all energy he had lost. Jumping up, he grabbed Mirai's wrist and dragged her along with him as he dashed forward, running on adrenaline alone. "We gotta go! Oh, man, it's five minutes past the meeting time! I'm dead! _Dead!_"

"H-Hey! I can run by myself, you know!" Mirai protested, attempting to pull away, but Shido had an iron grip.

With that, the snivy led his new friend into one of the strangest, most bizarre, and mind-wrecking adventures ever.

* * *

**Huh. Thanks for reading until the end! A total of 4k words this chapter, and while I can't promise anything, I hope it continues that way.**

**So. OCs. By submitting an OC (via PM, preferably), please make sure you're alright with me controlling them in every possible way, because I can and I probably will. I'll make sure to ask for your consent first, of course, but I can't guarantee it. They'll be introduced as early as I can, though I can't promise anything, once more.**

**MANDATORY:**

**Name (no need for a last name, although you can put one in if you feel the need to do so):**

**Age (preferably around 15-18; if you have a reason they should be older or younger, put it in!):**

**Gender:**

**Species (first or second evolutionary stage here! But if they're a super-successful pokemon from another Team, I guess anything goes. No legendaries, by the way!):**

**Level:**

**Moveset:**

**Ability:**

**Physical Appearance (hair color/length/style, eye color, skin color, etc):**

**Any defining features (scars, birthmarks, wings, etc)?:**

**Clothing:**

**Weapon/s:**

**Battle Style (be as descriptive as possible!):**

**Personality:**

**Backstory:**

**Speech Pattern (something they would say; two or more, please!):**

**Story Role (plot-relevant? Only there for one chapter? Part of the main Team? Anything, you name it!):**

**Are you okay with me killing them off? (There's a 50/50 chance I will and will not kill them. Cross your fingers. Also, note that this is here because, well, plot!):**

**OPTIONAL (fill this in if you feel like it! uwu):**

**Likes:**

**Dislikes:**

**Fears:**

**Any secrets?:**

**Hobbies:**

**Strengths (besides their type advantage and disadvantages):**

**Weaknesses (same from above):**

**Other (something else I forgot?):**

**I look forward to seeing all your OCs, everyone! Also, if they're part of a Team, send in around 2-4 members so I won't get too overloaded. Besides that, you can write as much as you want; I love reading your OC submissions! :3**

**PS: Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!**

_**Marei,12/24/13**_


	2. Of Ariados and Post Town

They arrived not too long after that in a seemingly barren area. It was ridiculously empty; there was just sand and a few rocks wherever they went. Shido, however, looked giddy at the fact that they were in a desert.

"We're here, we're here!" he cried out in joy. "Come on, it's just a little further to the meeting place!"

Still dragging the axew behind him, Shido scampered off to the east, eventually coming across another part of the desert-like area. There, a tall and thin man stood, drinking a bottle of alcohol casually. Once he saw the two heading towards him, however, he placed the bottle on the ground beside him.

"S-Sir!" Shido cried out once he reached the man, panting and huffing tiredly. "I'm… I'm here! S-Sorry if I'm late!"

"Mm. It's fine." The man shoved his hands in his pockets, turning to look down at the shorter pokemon. "You wanted to buy this land? It's kinda…" he looked around. "… empty… plus, there are Mystery Dungeons and Wild Pokemon all over the place. You're sure you'll be alright?"

"Well… no, but," Shido replied hesitantly, but his eyes started sparkling with a kind of spirit. "The mystery in the air… the feeling that there's always something new out there… it's kind of exciting, you know? It's like there'll always be an adventure for me!"

The man remained silent for a moment, before shaking his head resignedly. "… Whatever you say, kid. What's your name?"

"O-Oh!" Shido straightened up, trying to recompose himself from his previous position. "R-Right! I'm Shido, a snivy, sir! I'll be honored to buy this land from you!"

"Yeah…" he looked away. "Kumo, ariados. Nice to meet you and stuff. You got the money?"

"Y-Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!" Shido quickly snatched a small bag of money from his pocket and handed it to Kumo, waiting intently for his reply.

The ariados eyed the money bag, peeking inside to make sure it was enough, then nodded. "There you go. Land's all yours. I'll come back tomorrow to check up on you, so just stay alive for the next twelve hours." With that, he grabbed the alcohol bottle from the ground, shoved his left hand in his pocket, and walked away while casually drinking.

Shido remained speechless for a while, before his face broke out into a large grin. "I… I… I did it!" he cheered. "I did it! I have my own land! Oh, gosh, this is so cool!" He was shaking with mirth and excitement by now, smiling like there was no tomorrow. Just then, he remembered there was someone else with him.

Turning to face the mildly surprised axew, he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and looked away. "Oh, uh… I never actually explained all of this, huh…"

Mirai crossed her arms, and while she tried to put on an irritated expression, her face remained curious and inquisitive. "Well, I'm waiting."

"Right." Shido fiddled with his thumbs. "See… I have this dream. You know that pokemon are getting more and more aggressive nowadays, yeah? Well… I want to, you know, fix that. I want pokemon to be able to live in peace and never worry about being attacked or the like. It's almost like… I want to make a paradise for pokemon!" He exclaimed, eyes shining with that glint again. "You know? Just making others feel better… doesn't it make you feel good, too?" He sighed. "Though… I know I'm not going to be able to make it that far in just a few days by myself…" He tilted his head, this time looking at Mirai. "What about you, Mirai?"

"– Huh?" Not expecting it, the question caught her off guard. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you have no recollection of yourself, and it doesn't look like you have anywhere else to go," Shido said. "If you go out there alone, outlaws or Wild Pokemon may attack you… what are you gonna do?"

That's right… she hadn't thought of it before, but she did have nothing else to do. It was by sheer luck she ran into Shido when she woke up, and that he was a good pokemon and told her about the world she was in. But…

_What then?_ She thought sullenly. _I guess I have to camp out somewhere during night, but… what if I'm attacked? I'll be alone, without Shido or anyone else to back me up…_

"Hey, um, Mirai," Shido started, causing the axew's gaze to snap towards him. "How about you… um, join me? Like, join me in creating the Pokemon Paradise?"

The offer sounded so absurd and ridiculous coming from someone that she had just met that Mirai had to do a double-take. "Wh- What?!" she exclaimed. "You… You're going to ask that to someone you just met? What if I'm lying and I'm actually a robber and I'm going to kill you in the middle of the night or whatever?" She almost threw a fit. His naivety was something to gawk at, to be honest. "I might sell your soul to the devil for all you know!"

"But you won't will you?" came his simple reply. "Even though I did just meet you, you don't look like the treacherous type… plus, I trust you enough to ask that, right? So…" He looked away. "Um… let me ask that again… would you like to join me in creating a Pokemon Paradise?" He thrust his arm out, hand waiting.

Trusting someone he had just met… _this kid is on another level entirely,_ Mirai thought. _But…_ she stared at the hand, glimpsing at his smiling face. _I… well, it's not like I have much of a choice. Plus…_

"Sure." She shook his hand easily, although she was trying her hardest to keep a straight face. "Why not? Could… Could get me a place to sleep, anyway."

The snivy seemed to barely even hear the last part, as he looked giddy with happiness. "G-Great!" he exclaimed, almost jumping up and down. "I-I… thanks, Mirai!" he said, then hugged the axew tightly before running around in circles and cheering.

Mirai watched from the side, not knowing whether to smile or sigh. _But… I have to recover my lost memories somehow,_ she thought. _I need to find my purpose in this world, why I came here… and who I am._ She looked down at her hands. They didn't feel strange, per se, but they did seem a bit… different. Like they weren't her own. _If I join Shido in his Paradise-making, though… I suppose I could remember my past life soon._

_For now… I'll just have to relax and help him out._

* * *

The duo spent the rest of the day clearing a space in the wasteland for a house of some kind, but realized preparing even a bit of the land took a longer time than they thought when night descended upon them. They had only managed to make a small fort using tree branches and rocks, and used dead grass and the rare leaf for two small piles for beds.

Shido stared disappointedly at the makeshift house. "Well…" he began, but Mirai cut him off.

"Let's not," she said curtly. Examining the beds to make sure they didn't have anything weird, she casually took a seat on one of them. After a moment of silence, she scowled. "The air smells like rain. You should get to sleep before it starts; you're never going to fall asleep once it begins. I'm saying this from past experience."

"P-Past experience?!" Shido exclaimed in surprise. "Does that mean- Did you remember something, or…?"

Mirai's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "You- You're-!" she paused, calming down a little bit, before nodding slightly. "… I guess so… I just said it now, but… it seems like I did try to sleep while it was raining outside."

"That proves you did at least sleep for a night, right?" Shido said. "So you were probably somewhere that amplified the rain's noise…"

"Outside?" Mirai suggested. "Or maybe I was in a domed place?"

Shido shook his head. "I don't know… I guess it's still too early to tell, huh?" He sighed, before lying down on his 'bed' and staring at the poorly-made roof. "… Sheesh. I'm really tired from all that's happened today… I guess I'll go and sleep now." He yawned. "'Night, Mirai…"

The axew simply stared at him, before rolling her eyes. "… 'Night, punk."

* * *

Mirai's prediction had been true, as it started drizzling around twenty minutes after Shido fell asleep, and turning into a slightly heavy rain ten minutes later. Mirai, who obviously couldn't sleep, simply sat on her 'bed' and watched the rain fall.

She shivered. _Ugh… it's so cold. _She thought. _We should really do something about this tomorrow…_

Seeing movement from the corner of her eye, the axew turned to face the no-longer-sleeping Shido. "Mm… Mirai?" he mumbled. "You're still awake… how come?"

"Couldn't sleep," she replied easily. "It's nothing you need to worry about. Go back to sleep."

"Maybe…" he yawned, but sat up. "Maybe you used to stay up late all the time when you had your memories," he said.

Mirai stared at the snivy for a moment, before turning away. "Maybe," she muttered. "But it's not important right now. Seriously, go back to sleep. You've been through a lot today; you should rest up for tomorrow."

"… Concerned…?" he asked, managing a cheeky smile. Mirai scowled at him mutely. Shido shrugged and looked out at the rain. "You know… it's… really cold…"

"I noticed."

"Mm. We should, like… I don't know, build a better house tomorrow. Maybe we can find a carpenter not far from here or something." Shido yawned. "I guess now's not the time to be talking about that, though… 'night, Mirai, for real this time. You should go to sleep, too; it's not good for you to stay up this late…"

"Eh, I'll follow," Mirai reassured, waving it off. "I'll be fine, really. So, 'night."

The night continued on with silence, no other noise besides the pattering of rain on the wasteland. Underneath a house made of branches and rocks, the super-amnesiac axew watched.

* * *

It was well after morning when Shido awoke. His first instinct was to check if all his belongings were still with him and that he wasn't hurt anywhere. His next was to look beside him.

There, dozing peacefully in a ball was his first partner, Mirai. The axew who had landed in this world with no memories at all of her past life. The snivy stared at her sleeping form for a moment, contemplating about her life and the day before, before he realized it was about time he had gotten up.

"Th-That's right, he said he was going to visit today…" he muttered to himself, stretching before standing up and almost hitting his head on their soggy and drenched roof. Even now, there was still a light drizzle over them. Shido winced a bit, then proceeded to clear the area above him. The roof did hold, fortunately, but it was going to be a bother if they needed to keep using this 'house'.

That's right… a house. They were going to get someone to build them a house, right? He and Mirai had talked about it for a bit last night. Straightening to his full height, Shido crawled out of the house and observed his surroundings.

The wasteland was still pretty barren, as always, but there were more clusters of other miscellaneous items, such as logs, tree branches, and the occasional boulder. The rain must have washed those in from other parts of the wasteland, he reasoned.

"… Mm… Ah. Shido?" came a voice from behind him, accompanied by a tired yawn. "You're awake at this time of the day?"

"It's really your fault for staying up so late, really," Shido replied, turning around to face Mirai, who was still sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "Come on, oh great super amnesiac! We've got tons to do, and you need to make yourself look presentable in front of our landlord."

"Landlord?" Mirai asked, raising an eyebrow. "Since when did we have one?"

"You know, mister Kumo!" Shido said, sighing in exasperation. "He used to own this land until I bought it from him. He's still technically our landlord, though."

"That makes no sense…" Another yawn. "… but, I don't really care right now." Standing up, Mirai stretched her arms and legs and crawled out of the soaked 'house'. She stared at it dejectedly. "I spent hours of work on that… and now it's reduced to this disappointment…" she gave out a sigh. "Oh well. We were getting a house today, right?"

"Mhm." Shido paused. "Well, I guess we have to meet up with mister Kumo first, though, since he said he was going to visit us today. Might as well save him the trouble of coming over and go to him."

Mirai nodded. "Okay…"

* * *

The two were barely out of the wasteland area before the familiar red-haired ariados came into their sight. "Sir!" Shido exclaimed, immediately going into a saluting position. "G-Good morning! We've managed to stay alive so far, despite the heavy rain last night. Are you doing well?"

"Fine," Kumo replied casually, drinking from his alcohol bottle again. "Looks like you're good. Right then… you said something about the rain? Don't you need a house for that?"

"We kinda built one," Mirai explained. "It held, but I don't think it's gonna last a second time. We need an actual house for that."

"Huh." The ariados paused, then turned around, gesturing for them to follow him. "Right, then. This way. Pretty sure there's a carpenter in Post Town, so I think you can get him to build you guys a house."

"R-Really?!" Shido exclaimed. "That's great! Thank you, sir! We greatly appreciate it!"

"I got that. Now hurry up."

The snivy followed after him without another word. Mirai hesitated for a bit, before trailing after them reluctantly. She frowned slightly. _How can I tell them I get the feeling this isn't going to be as easy as it looks?_

* * *

"Here it is, I guess. Post Town in all its Post-Town-ish glory," Kumo said, drinking a bit from his alcohol bottle before continuing. "The carpenters aren't far from here, but let me show you a few things before we go on. You'll be visiting this place a lot, after all."

Spread out before the three of them was a small town, with several stands set up in every corner. There were a few buildings as well, but the more eye-catching ones were the stands; they were filled to the brim with all kinds of items, like shining blue orbs or luscious and delicious-looking berries. The buildings weren't taller than three stands stacked on top of each other, but they looked interesting as well. There was a hospital, a hotel, a department store… all kinds of facilities were everywhere.

"W-Wow!" Shido marveled. "This place looks so… you know, exciting! I can't wait to take a look around!"

Kumo jerked his head to one of the stands. Standing there was a boy clad in green, with his shoulder-length hair dyed with yellow highlights. He had a cheerful sort of air around him, as well as all kinds of items on his counter. Several pokemon flocked towards his stand, gawking at the items he had on display.

"That one's Syo's Store," Kumo began. "He's a kecleon, you know; kecleons are fond of business. Syo isn't any different. He's nicer than most, but he has a bargaining side to him that you don't wanna see. I advise you try and buy the set price immediately 'cause if you don't, well, it was nice knowing you rookies."

Shido gulped. "Advice taken."

Kumo then pointed to a curious dark-purple box with yellow encrusting. It was situated next to Syo's Store, just in front of them. "That's what you call a Deposit Box. You store your money and other items in there. So far, research is being undergone as to how these Deposit Boxes are storing our stuff and apparently has an account for every pokemon, but the scientists aren't making much headway. Doesn't really matter for you rookies though, so just use that thing 'till we can find a better alternative, which seems unlikely at this point."

"Next one's Royama's Box Busting Stand," Kumo continued, pointing at another, rockier stand this time, with a black-haired man who looked like he was made entirely out of muscle. He had blue streaks in his hair, and wore a gray-black-blue outfit. The trio easily noticed his frequent glances to the stand just across his. "A rampardos, and one of the strongest ones, or so I've heard; he can break open the Treasure Boxes you find in Mystery Dungeons and get the stuff that's inside. He's also love-smitten with that cinccino over there."

"That cinccino? She runs Chiyeko's Gift Shop, which sells Friend Gifts. Friend Gifts are nicely wrapped gifts that you give to Wild Pokemon; those gifts have around a seventy percent chance to befriend that Wild Pokemon and turn them into a Team Pokemon. Other times, they just won't kill you. Heard she ran out of materials for Gifts, though, so she's closing down for a while until she gets enough again."

Kumo looked around the town, before pointing at another stand a bit far from where they were standing. A strange-looking man with wavy blonde hair sat, grinning widely, his sharp teeth showing. Occasionally, he'd fiddle with his black elbow-length gloves. "That one over there, it's Kuroga's Gold Bar Exchange. He's a cofagrigus, and I've heard he can get pretty dangerous at times if you cheat him out, so be careful around him. He trades items and money for Gold Bars, so if you find any during our adventures, you should probably give them to him. He can smell Gold Bars up to eighty kilometers away."

Mirai's eyes enlarged slightly.

"Lastly…" The ariados pointed at a rather small stand with small mushrooms growing all around it. A short, redheaded boy with red-and-white clothes stood there, nodding off every once in a while. "That's Fumiaki's DLC Stand. He's a foongus, and more often than not, those mushrooms around his stand will make you fall asleep, so watch out. He sells DLC, or downloadable content. Nobody really knows what it's for, and since he doesn't really give out good business, no one really bothers to try and find out either."

Kumo paused, then drank a bit from his bottle and sighed. "That's about it. The other facilities in here aren't gonna be your top priorities, so just take a look around when you have time. There's also an inn, but it's around ninety-percent bar, since nobody stays in there when they can go to a real hotel. It's called Shiemi's Inn, and I stay there more than I like to admit, but the carpenters are usually over there as well." Kumo shrugged. "I'll go look for him, so you guys just go look around a bit and come back to the square when you're ready."

"Got it!" Shido said, saluting. "We're ready when you are, sir!"

"Good to know." With that, the ariados walked over to the inn he had pointed out before and left the duo alone in the bustling town streets.

Shido turned to look at Mirai excitedly, obviously eager to start looking around. "Which one first, Mirai? You pick first!"

"Huh?" She hated being put on the spot, but… in a place as colorful as this, she could make an exception. "Maybe we could check out the library first?"

Indeed, the very first building that had caught her attention had been the library. It should have been one of the stands, especially Syo's, but it was library. Perhaps she had liked reading books in her past life, for her to be attracted to the library so quickly.

"Alright! To the library it is, then!" Shido exclaimed happily as he skipped towards the building. It was quite an unusual sight, to see Shido so happy (and _skipping_, at that – she was fairly sure he wasn't the kind of pokemon to skip), but Mirai followed anyway. He seemed to know the general direction of where the library was, so she supposed directing him served no purpose.

Once they entered the library, they were shock-still. The sheer amount of books and shelves everywhere, coupled with the surprisingly minimal amount of dust, was enough to silence them.

"Oh? New town residents, hm?" A soft, ladylike voice echoed from the counter a few ways away from them. When they looked over, a woman dressed in a gothic-lolita style stood. Her long, black hair flowed behind her mesmerizingly. "It's always a good thing to see the new generation learning to appreciate the art of words. Make yourselves at home." She bowed, then returned to her spot behind the counter.

"W-Who's she?" Shido whispered. Mirai shrugged.

"Aye, she's the librarian 'round these parts. A gothitelle, with the beautiful name of Celestia at that." Another voice with an Aussie accent replied, coming from beside them this time. Beside them, another pokemon a few years older than them stood, a small book in his hands. He wore dark violet clothes, with a pair of wings the size of head stretching from his back. His light blonde ruffled hair fell on his bright blue eyes slightly, and he pushed it away, irritated, showing a scar across his face.

"O-Oh, hey!" Shido greeted. "Nice to meet you. I'm Shido, and this is Mirai, my partner. Who're you?" he asked, shaking the boy's hand.

He half-smirked. "Taylor the rufflet, at your service. I mostly hang around this place, but…" his eyes glazed over for a second, before returning to their shining blue. "… well, it's none 'a your concern. If you need my help, just call."

With that, he walked away, wings bouncing slightly, and returned to one of the couches, reading his book. Shido turned to look at Mirai, a smile filling his face entirely. "Look at all the awesome pokemon in here, Mirai!" he whisper-yelled. "Once we get enough pokemon to join us, we can become a full-time Team! Isn't that cool?!"

"Y-Yeah, I guess so," Mirai said, nodding. "In that case, we just need two more pokemon, right? Let's go somewhere where we can start recruiting them for Paradise."

"That's a great idea! I saw a dojo somewhere near here, let's go there next!"

* * *

After around half an hour, the duo returned to the town square, where Kumo was patiently waiting. The ariados stared at them, no emotion showing on his face at all. "How was it? Used to Post Town yet?"

Shido sighed. "P-Post Town's great and all, sir, but almost all of the pokemon here are already in Teams, and if not, they're not looking for one to recruit them…" He turned up to face Kumo once more, managing a bright smile. "But I'm sure if we look around more, we'll find someone who shares the same interest as us! We just have to work pretty hard, mhm!"

The ariados remained quiet, before turning to look at the axew beside him. "You have a good partner," he said in a monotone, before turning around and drinking from his alcohol bottle. "Let's go, now. The carpenter's come back from one of his recent drinking contests, so I think he can accept anything right about now." He walked off to the inn, leaving only Mirai to follow. The axew paused in her steps, turning around to face the bewildered-looking Shido.

"You coming or not, punk?" she asked, crossing her arms and adjusting the green-tinted glasses on the bridge of her nose.

Shido nodded, still silent, before saying, "I think he planned the drinking contest to get the carpenter drunk all from the start…"

Mirai shrugged. "He's a landlord. He does things."

"Agreed… well, let's go, Mirai! We're gonna get ourselves a house!"

Mirai nodded, forcing a small smile, and letting Shido go in front of her. _But… I still can't shake off this feeling… will the carpenter really build a house for us with just money…?_

* * *

**Welp. Here's the second chapter, my dear readers. Introducing Kumo the ariados (by Coli Chibi), who shall be the Quagsire of this story, and Taylor the rufflet (by RomeoWolf13), who shall be AWESOME. I guarantee you. The merchants and other NPCs are mine. Sorta. If you caught Celestia the gothitelle reference, I will love you forever.**

**4k and one-tenth words this time. Good enough. The five other OCs submitted by Rainbow and Yamato2706 shall appear... sometime. In a single-digit chapter, I promise.**

**Thanks for reading!**

_**Marei, 27/12/13**_


	3. Of Gurdurrs and Caves

"HAH!" the tall, bulky man boomed. He was dressed in simple, practical clothes that just barely refrained from ripping from all his muscle. "Build a house? For _you_ little twits? Are you sure you're not going crazy?"

"Oh, uh, we…" Shido glanced to the side, where Kumo stood mutely, providing no help whatsoever. The snivy turned his gaze to look back at the relatively tall gurdurr. "We… can pay you, y'know? We have money, and I'm sure it wouldn't be too much trouble for you… right…?"

The gurdurr remained quiet, staring down at Shido. The snivy, who was at average height and even then was quite a bit taller than Mirai, looked like a baby compared to the carpenter's massive size. The axew observed all this from Shido's side, glaring heatedly at the noticeable difference in their heights above her.

"**_HUUUUAAAARGH!_**"

Both axew and snivy jumped in fright as the gurdurr released a long, eardrum-bursting roar. Kumo kept his stoic expression, simply looking to the side casually, as if he was used to this. Which he very well might be.

"FINE!" a reply finally came, echoing across the inn. The gurdurr lifted up his signature steel beam, swinging it so carelessly that it just narrowly missed hitting Shido's face. "I'll build this house of yours! Consider it done, heh?"

"R-Really?" Shido asked, eyes shining. "You will? You really, really will?"

"Sure I will," the gurdurr rumbled. "I'm Akio, _the_ carpenter 'round these parts."

"I'm Shido!" the snivy introduced excitedly. "This is my partner, Mirai. H-How much do you ne-"

"Naw, keep yer money," Akio said. "What I want… are five, little, blue, _stones_."

Mirai raised an eyebrow. "Five… little… blue… stones?"

"Mhm." The gurdurr nodded. "You know of that cave not too far from here; Stony Cave or some sort? Yeah. There's a bunch of shiny blue stones at the end of the cave. Go get me some. That'll do."

"Just those?" Shido grinned. "Great! That should be easy. Mirai, you heard him, right?"

"Stony Cave… or some sort," the axew repeated obediently. "Then we get a house and don't need to wake up to sopping wet roofs."

The snivy nodded, a smile ever-present on his face. He turned to look at Akio, a thankful glint in his eye. "We'll go get five of those stones you want real quick, and you'll build our house, yeah?"

The gurdurr nodded. "That's the plan."

"Alright!" Shido cheered, pumping his fist in the air. "We got this, Mirai! Let's go! Stony Cave's a pretty easy Mystery Dungeon, you won't have too much trouble!" With that, Shido grabbed the axew's wrist and ran outside the inn. They didn't even take their time to look around in the inn, hurrying as they were.

The signora of the inn, a tall woman with flowing white hair and regal, blue-streaked wings, let out a quiet sigh. "Honestly," she muttered. "Won't he ever stop?"

"It doesn't seem so," Kumo replied in a monotone, seemingly having teleported right next to the swanna. "Trust me on this one, though, Shiemi. Those two are… different, in a way." He crossed his arms. "… Though whether I have my hopes up or not remains unseen."

Shiemi heaved another sigh, this one of disappointment and exasperation mixed in. "Have it your way, lady's man."

"It is not my fault that they all seem to be attracted to the 'cool, quiet guy' as they say…"

* * *

_Stony Cave – Floor 1_

Stony Cave was, well, stony. And a cave. It wasn't anything impressive, and like Shido had said, nothing too hard either.

The cavern walls were covered with rocks of all shapes and sizes. The paths were also ridiculously narrow, often making the duo have to walk sideward to get through. An advantage to the narrowness was that the Wild Pokemon, lacking much intelligence, weren't able to ambush them, unless from above. They had been assaulted by the common woobat once more, but they were more prepared for them this time, and weren't taken by surprise like last time.

"Hey, punk?" Mirai started, but was interrupted by Shido before she could go on.

He turned to face her, an annoyed look in his eyes. "Really, Mirai, do you have to keep calling me that?"

"It's much easier to say than, well," she shivered. "_Shido_." She said the name like it was poison in her tongue.

The snivy raised an eyebrow, summoning his sword and destroying a boulder in the way while doing so. "What's wrong with my name?"

"I… don't know," Mirai replied, her voice now softer in volume. "I think it has something to do with my past. I just don't feel comfortable saying others' names…"

"Huh." Shido pondered over it for a bit, before spinning around to face her once more, a smile on his face. "Well, we're friends, so you're going to have to call me by my name, like a normal pokemon, alright?"

"… Friends, already?" Mirai asked. "You're… sure about that?"

"Sure I'm sure," Shido replied nonchalantly. "Why shouldn't I be?"

Mirai, the super-amnesiac axew, said nothing. Another piece of her lost memories had returned; the fact that she had no friends.

* * *

_Stony Cave – Floor 4_

Stony Cave had five, easy floors, the snivy had said. Mirai, who had gotten the hang of things, started going into battles by herself without needing Shido's constant help. Her best tactic was to scratch-scratch-scratch, then run around in circles while the enemy pokemon chased her around. Then she'd jump over and deliver another round of scratches on what looked like the pokemon's weakest spot. She was right fifty percent of the time. The other fifty percent resulted in her having to yell for Shido.

Mirai also still had no idea how to summon her weapon. Shido told her every pokemon had one, and even though she had lost her memories, she was still a proper pokemon and should be able to summon one. No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn't get anything to appear out of thin air like the snivy easily could. She ended up having to rely way too much on her nails, as she couldn't breathe the blue fires – _Dragon Rage_, Shido had called it – like she had back on the mountain.

And then the worst thing ever happened. They ran into a braviary.

It was easily recognizable as one, from the massive wings on its back. It flapped around restlessly in a small room, obviously distressed about something. Every so often, it would let out a loud caw.

Shido had been leading the way when he abruptly stopped, his eyes widening, then scrambling back to hit Mirai and send them both sprawling on the cave floor. Grunting, Mirai pulled him up and stared at the peculiar sight in front of her.

"And… that is?" she prompted.

"A braviary," Shido whispered, his voice barely more than a breath. "Don't speak too loud, Mirai. They have pretty sensitive hearing…"

The axew shrugged, but nodded. "So, what's the matter? It's just another Wild Pokemon, isn't it?"

"No!" Shido objected, shaking his head violently. "Pokemon like these aren't _just _another Wild Pokemon. They're called Boss Pokemon, Wild Pokemon that roam certain Dungeons and are at least five times the strength of other Wild Pokemon. They're super strong, and we can't just beat them with sheer force! We'll need strategy, although I really hope you're not _actually _thinking of fighting it… right?"

"Hmm." Mirai looked to the side, then turned her gaze back to the braviary. "I don't think so… I'm not that strong yet anyway, am I? I think I'll die five seconds into the fight. Plus…" she hesitated, struggling to recall the lectures Shido had given her before. "Um… you're a grass-type or something, right? And that looks like a flying-type. You'd be dead _two _seconds into the fight."

"True." Shido nodded, proud of Mirai's knowledge. "I can see the stairs from the room ahead though. How do we…?"

"It's obvious," Mirai said instantly. "I'll be the bait. You run off to the room and I'll follow as soon as you get there. We'll go down together as always."

Shido's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "W-What?! No! You can't do that! That braviary is going to kill you!"

"It's our only chance," Mirai said, eyeing the braviary and trying to see which spot looked most fragile. "Just hurry up and get ready, will you? That thing does look pretty tough…"

"Yeah, well-"

"Ready?"

Shido remained silent, before scowling. "Fine, have it your way, you suicidal axew."

"Thanks." Mirai cracked a smile, before turning to face the tall bird pokemon. "Alright, I'll go there in a few. Once it's distracted enough, go to the room with the stairs _immediately_. Don't help me, no matter what. Got it?"

Shido sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Just hurry up already."

Mirai said nothing more, then before the snivy could see it, she had dashed up to right in front of the braviary and smashed the entirety of her body against it. A loud screech reverberated throughout the entire floor, and the braviary flew out of the way, beating its massive wings. With another caw, it dove down to strike at the axew. Mirai just barely rolled out of the way, stumbling over jutting rocks and landing unsteadily on her feet.

The braviary lifted back up to the air, eyes narrowed and cawing echoing everywhere. Convinced its eyes were fixed firmly on Mirai, Shido took the chance to run straight through the room and arrive to the stairs. He waited by the edge, biting his fingernails and obviously worrying for Mirai.

Mirai, on the other hand, was faring well. She hadn't gotten a scratch so far, and the braviary didn't seem smarter than any other Wild Pokemon they had faced; the only thing it constantly did was fly up to the air, attempt to dive-bomb her, then lift itself back when Mirai dodged by the slightest inch. Once she noticed Shido successfully making it through, she quickly dropped her defensive act and fled to the next room as fast as she could. The braviary squawked in surprise, and immediately dive-bombed the axew with the fastest speed imaginable. Mirai yelped as the bird pokemon crashed into the ground, creating a loud explosion and a big cloud of smoke.

"Mirai, hurry! This way!" Shido yelled over the noise. Mirai, still stumbling around and tripping over her two feet, eventually reached the snivy and Shido wasted no time in grabbing her wrist and flinging the both of them down the stairs as fast as they could. They practically threw themselves down to the next floor, landing in another random room. Shido jumped upwards and slammed the trapdoor close, and soon enough, a loud bang came from the upper floor, followed by a muffled screech.

_Stony Cave – Floor 5_

"You need to be alert at all times and close the trapdoor," Shido explained, still gasping for breath. "If you don't close it after more than five seconds, the Wild Pokemon will all be drawn to the opened trapdoor and follow us to the next floor. That will likely result into a…" he shivered. "… a Monster House."

"M-Monster House…?" Mirai repeated, taking in deep breaths to calm herself down. "What's that?"

"I'm not sure either," the snivy replied. "What I do know about it is that dozens of pokemon will come popping out of that trapdoor and overload the entire floor, causing a glitch in the system of a Mystery Dungeon. Eventually, the Dungeon will warp and distort and trap everything within it in an endless Time Scream."

Mirai scowled. The duo had recovered enough to traverse through the last floor, now, with Shido taking the lead as usual. "You're using so many weird terms I can't keep up…"

"Oh." Shido paused. "Sorry about that. A Time Scream is pretty much the freezing of time in an area. It takes about twenty or so minutes until the Time Scream begins to start from the area with the open trapdoor, then spread faster and faster until it covers the entire floor, and, soon, the whole dungeon. It only covers the floor and the rest of the above floors you were in, though. So, say, you activated a Monster House at the fifth floor. The Time Scream will only cover the floors five, four, three, two, and one. The best way to get away from a Time Scream is to get to the next floor before twenty minutes passes, because it renders all Orbs and other things useless." Shido sighed. "It's really a lot to learn. If you enrolled in a school, you'd know."

Mirai shrugged. "We have almost next to no funds right now. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'd be out of place in there…"

Shido waved it off. "Doesn't matter. Say, Stony Cave really isn't too much of a trouble, is it?" he asked, grinning. "We barely ran into any Wild Pokemon in here, and there aren't a lot of obstacles in the way. It's like someone cleared this place out for us!"

"I wish," Mirai muttered. "It's more like something bad is gonna happen soon. I can just _feel _it."

Shido immediately stopped in his tracks, turning to face the axew with a look that seemed both horrified and amazed. "M-Mirai… you just… what did you just say?"

"Huh…? Well, I said that something bad is going to happen… though I think it's just an intuition." Mirai tilted her head. "Something wrong with that?"

"_Mirai!_" Shido cried in joy, rushing up to the axew and grabbing her shoulders. "Do you _know_ what this means?! Oh, man, this hasn't happened in _years_! You're _kidding _me!"

"What? What's the matter with my intuition? Do you not agree with it?" Mirai asked, clearly bewildered by Shido's sudden outburst. "Has someone not had an intuition in years? Is there something incredibly wrong with this world or what?"

"Mirai, you don't understand!" the snivy exclaimed. "This means that you're qualified as a Future Guardian! This is _awesome_! I am partners with someone who has potential to be a _Future Guardian_! You have absolutely no idea!"

"You're right in the last part," Mirai grumbled, shaking Shido's hands off her shoulders and crossing her arms, glaring at the snivy. "Lead the way, and tell me about this Future Guardian of yours."

"Gladly!" Shido excitedly took the lead, almost skipping as he rapidly explained everything he had to explain. "See, Mirai, Future Guardians are exactly as they're called. They're rare pokemon who are born with the mysterious powers to see into the future! At first, though, it just starts out small, like that intuition of yours. But soon, they get stronger, and then they start having Visions of the future! It's super duper cool!" He let out a laugh in glee. "Future Guardians, once they have their first Vision, leave a psychic signature in the area they had the Vision. They are then personally sought out by _the_ Kyurem, the almighty protector of the future! They're hired to be his Future Guardians and part of his fleet, those who will protect and guard the future at all costs!"

"Well, I get that they're cool and all," Mirai slowly said. "But… what if the future is a bad one? Surely they have to change the future _some_how."

"That's also one of the many good things of being a Future Guardian," Shido continued. "Other pokemon think they're changing the future, but they're actually just following it. For Future Guardians, they can change the future by going there and doing something to muss it all up! It's absolutely _amazing_." He sighed. "Future Guardians have to abide by _some _rules, though. One thing is that if they're one of Kyurem's, his word is absolute. They can't change it like they can change the future. If he says no, it means no."

"This Kyurem guy sounds pretty…" Mirai searched for a word. "… something. How… _do_ you know if someone's a Future Guardian, though? I mean, it's just an intuition. It's not like it's a Vision or whatever. It might very well not even come true…"

"Don't you _get_ it, Mirai?" Shido said. "Rarely _anyone_ has strong intuitions these days! Almost nobody follows their gut feeling and retreats to the safety of towns and cities; _nobody_ listens to themselves anymore. They just run away because of all the bad pokemon running amok. It's always a blessing to hear someone say 'I'm following my intuition.' It's really inspiring, actually."

He let out another sigh. "But… you're right about the part you might, _might_, not be a Future Guardian. Still, it's always been my dream to be friends with a Future Guardian!" His spirits lifted once more. "That they can have occasional Visions and tell me all about them, and then we'll change the future together… I've always thought it would be cool to be with them."

The axew was speechless for a moment, before looking away. "… Don't get your hopes up. I don't want to see your so-sad face once it seems that I never have another intuition like this again."

Shido smiled. "You really just don't want to see me sad… is what you're saying?"

"_No!_"

* * *

_Stony Cave – Pit_

"Looks like we're in the deepest part of the Dungeon," Shido said, looking around. Carefully, he walked over to a clump of shining blue rocks and took a look at one. "Is this what Akio is looking for?"

"Probably," Mirai responded, already scooping a few small stones and placing them in her pocket. "They're the only blue stones we've seen around here, anyway. Come on, I've got five. We're just about done here."

Shido nodded, smiling. "Right! Then we can give them to Akio and get us a proper house!"

Mirai returned the smile with a smaller one. "Yeah…"

_Something… isn't right here._

* * *

Once the duo had traversed back to Post Town, Shido made a beeline for the inn, dragging Mirai along with him. "I can't wait to tell mister Kumo about your Future Guardian potential and give Akio the stones he wanted!" he rattled on. "And we should think of recruiting more members for our Paradise too! And–"

Before he could say anymore, a strange-looking pokemon has ran into Mirai, causing the axew to fall over. Flustered at her humiliation, Mirai quickly got back on her feet, straightened her skirt, and turned to look at the frightened pokemon. It had blonde hair and wore red and yellow clothes, along with baggy pants it was constantly pulling up.

"Alright, look here little boy–" she started, but just as she began, the scraggy pokemon squeaked in terror and took off running in the opposite direction without even a sorry. The axew threatened to chase after it as well, but Shido just barely managed to hold her back down. "Let go of me!" she yelled. "I'm going to bust that annoying thing a new one!"

"Mirai, calm down!" the snivy shouted over her various death threats. "You can get back at him later. What's more important is that we deliver the stones already!"

Mirai eventually settled down, crossing her arms and grumpily stomping into the inn with Shido beside her. The snivy inched away as much as he could without looking too suspicious.

"Oh?" the gurdurr, surrounded by his two apprentices, looked up from his food. "Well, it's the titchy little pokemon who wanted a house, huh? Got those blue stones back for me, did you?"

Shido nodded cheerily. "Yup! Mirai, the stones?"

"That's the problem," the axew muttered. "I can't find them!"

"_What?_" Shido whisper-yelled. "You're kidding! You got to have them! I saw you stuffing those things in your pockets like no tomorrow!"

"Well, say that to my pockets, then, because _they're not here!_"

"What's wrong now?" Akio asked, shoving a spoonful of curry rice in his mouth. "Having trouble finding them, are you?"

"O-Oh, uh, hahaha…" Shido looked away, rapidly whispering for Mirai to look for them as fast as she could. "Yeah, well, I'm sure my partner just misplaced it! S-She'll find it in no time, no worries!"

The gurdurr stood from his chair, looking down at the duo menacingly. He was so tall and bulky he blocked out the light from the fluorescent lamp above them, making a shiver run down Shido's spine. "Heh… you're kidding me, right? You got the stones… _didn't you?_"

Just as the poor snivy was about to go into cardiac arrest, Kumo stepped in. His piercing purple eyes seemed to almost burn a hole through the gurdurr and the carpenter grumbled, before stepping down. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said under his breath, then returning his gaze to the snivy and the undeterred axew. "That _was_ our deal, though. Five blue stones and the little guys get a house."

Shido desperately turned to look at Mirai, who shook her head. "Not a blue stone for miles," she replied simply.

The snivy's previous ecstatic demeanor had dwindled down to the most depressed feeling Mirai had ever seen. It was as if he had just experienced an intense mood swing. "S-So… what do we do…?"

"Looks like you guys are just gonna have to scuttle off back to Stony Cave, aren't ya?" Akio said, chewing his rice. "Got no other choice unless you want a house, it seems."

"B-But…" Mirai could easily see he was thinking of the braviary from before. "I…" Shido sighed, hanging his head. "… Okay… Mirai, let's go…"

The axew shot a burning glare at the smirking gurdurr's face, before slamming the door of the inn and walking off with Shido. The ariados, who had retreated back to Shiemi's side, narrowed his eyes at the carpenter.

"Not working according to plan, now, is it?" Shiemi asked nonchalantly, writing something down in a record book.

Kumo shrugged. "That is up for debate."

* * *

Shido let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "… I wonder where you might have dropped those stones, huh, Mirai…?" he asked quietly, though it seemed like he didn't really care anymore.

"It's gotta be that blondie," Mirai said, clenching her fist. "He probably bumped into me so the stones would fall out of my pocket, then he'd steal them! There's no other way!"

The snivy shrugged. "It's a possibility… well, let's go after the scraggy then, shall we? I wonder where he could have gone…"

"He went to Hazy Pass."

The duo spun around, tensed in a battle stance, but dropped their guard once they saw the gurdurr's two apprentices. They were both timburrs, and about Shido's height, wearing similar clothes; baggy faded jeans and a gray tee. "The scraggy went to Hazy Pass. He should still be there," the older-looking one said.

"How… do you know?" Mirai asked cautiously.

The younger one fidgeted a bit, before hiding his face in his hands. "I-It's not us, alright? We don't mean anything by it!"

With that, he scurried back into the inn, quickly followed by the older timburr. Shido stared after them, slightly confused, while Mirai crossed her arms. "I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered.

The snivy turned to look at her, a weak smile on his face. "Must be your Future Guardian instincts again."

"I _told_ you, there's a possibility–"

"_Anyway_," Shido cut in as fast as he could. "Those timburr said the scraggy went to Hazy Pass. They might have just seen him go there, you know? Let's head over there and take a look for ourselves."

Mirai, grumbling under her breath, reluctantly followed the snivy to their destination.

* * *

_Hazy Pass – Rest Area_

As soon as Shido had caught sight of the rest area just ahead of them, he instantly sprinted for it, entering the protective barrier and dragging Mirai along with him. The surprised axew tumbled in, almost hitting her head on the Deposit Box in the middle of the area. "Where are we?" she asked, disoriented.

"We're in a rest area, Mirai!" Shido exclaimed happily. "Rest areas are available in certain dungeons where there is a clear space and a Deposit Box in the middle. A protective barrier spell is cast on it so that Team Pokemon can stay here all they want without having to worry about Wild Pokemon attacking them."

"Oh." Mirai blinked. "Well… that's certainly useful."

"'Course it is!"

The duo spent a few minutes to catch their breath and eat some apples they had picked up on the way for brunch. Shido discussed more about the Future Guardians and whatnot, while Mirai simply listened.

After they had disposed of the apple cores, they proceeded on to the fifth floor.

_Hazy Pass – Floor 5_

The fifth floor was noticeably more different than the other floors in Hazy Pass. It was much foggier, and the Wild Pokemon tended to stay away from the duo, which was very strange and disconcerting. Mirai thought this was just a weird occurrence, while Shido thought it was a sign of the world about to end.

"Wild Pokemon aren't supposed to act this way!" he whispered. "They always attack you first, and they never run away from a fight, even from one another. It's so weird!"

"Shouldn't you be thankful?" Mirai raised an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah, but it still doesn't make sense…"

They continued on in a tense silence, until they came across the stairs. This time, they descended slowly, as if waiting for the Wild Pokemon to attack them viciously like all the other times, but nothing came. Shido jumped down first, and Mirai closed the trapdoor quickly.

"Is this… the last floor?" the snivy wondered, looking around. "It looks like we're on a plateau of sorts…"

_Hazy Pass – Floor 6_

"Doesn't look like it," Mirai muttered, turning her gaze to a nearby entrance to another part of Hazy Pass. "Seems like there's more to go–_hey!_"

Just next to the second cavern entrance was the same blonde pokemon, the scraggy. His fist was closed around something, so they couldn't see it very well, but Mirai could clearly see a small glint of blue.

"I knew it!" she seethed quietly. "That filthy blonde stole the stones! Why, I'm gonna–"

"Shh!" Shido said, covering the axew's mouth and dragging her behind a large boulder. "Someone's coming this way! Don't move, don't talk, just watch."

Mirai struggled a bit, but eventually settled down to watch the first cavern entrance intensely. A few seconds later, a familiar pokemon came out of the Mystery Dungeon, recognizable by the fact that he was carrying a large steel beam.

"_Akio!_" Shido whispered in surprise, just barely managing to keep quiet.

"You're here at last, huh." The scraggy turned around to face Akio.

The gurdurr smirked. "Heh. Yeah, I am. Took some time to get rid of the Wild Pokemon, y'know. Those kids, though…" his smirk enlarged. "They were ridiculously easy to fool. Seriously now, a _house_ during this time? Nobody ever asks for a house anymore. I didn't actually think they'd believe me, though; that snivy was pretty trusting."

The scraggy scoffed. "You're probably cruel enough to make them go fetch you blue stones forever. I wouldn't expect any less from you."

"Of course, heh… why not, after all?"

"Why that little–!" Before Mirai could pounce out from behind the boulder, two pokemon had already appeared from behind a couple of bushes. One had a brown, bushy tail and a pair of eevee ears, and the other had two blue cat-like ears and a black staff identifying her as a riolu.

"H-Hey!" the eevee exclaimed, pointing her shaking finger at the duo. "I-I… um… we as… as…"

"Oh, whatever," the riolu said, rolling her eyes. With a much more authoritative and intimidating stance, she pointed her staff at the gurdurr and scraggy and said, "We, as part of the Pokemon Exploration Police Force, declare you under arrest!"

* * *

**Happy New Year everyone! Whoo.**

**I received quite a few OC submissions, and I love them all. But anyway, here's an eevee and a riolu! :O What will happen now, especially as they're in a police force? Dun dun duuuun.**

**Now that I'm done with this chapter, it's back to Rainy Season for me... sigh...**

_**Marei, 1/1/14**_


	4. Of Scraggies and Apprentices

"The _what_?" Mirai whispered.

Shido's eyes widened in admiration. "The Pokemon Exploration Police Force! They're the ones who apprehend criminals and the like! I've heard they're super cool and they do stuff like this all the time on TV!"

"Huh." Mirai peeked out of the rock. "Interesting. I guess that is kinda cool. But can I–"

"No."

"Oh _come on_!" Mirai said exasperatedly. "That blondie was the entire reason we came here! How come I can't fight?"

"Because," Shido rolled his eyes. "You're obviously not used to fighting yet, are you? And they're from the Police Force. They can handle this."

Mirai scrunched up her eyebrows. "Aren't eevees, y'know, normal-type? That gurdurr guy looks like a fighting-type. You're really sure they're gonna be fine?"

"They got this. Don't worry."

The axew scowled, but plunked back down to watch from the sidelines.

"Arrest?" The scraggy repeated, as if the very idea repulsed him. "I can't be under arrest. I didn't do nothin'!"

"F-From the testimony of D-Daichi and Takeshi, timburrs, we can declare you both _guilty_ of stealing, deceiving, and r-robbery!" the eevee stammered, pointing shakily at them. "You're not allowed to do that… you should think of–"

"For goodness sake, Sakura, you need to work on that stutter," the riolu stated bluntly, although her mouth didn't seem to move. "You need to instill fear in others, you know! We're the apprentices of a police force now, you can't–"

And then she realized her mistake.

"A… Apprentices?" All pokemon in the vicinity repeated in varying volumes.

"You're _kidding_!" Shido hissed. "Apprentices? _Apprentices?_ Apprentices with a type disadvantage can't possibly handle this by _themselves_! Mirai!"

"Ready when you are," the axew said, already clenching and unclenching her fists, ready for a fight.

"Apprentices?!" Akio bellowed, then broke out into a hearty laugh. "Hah! I can't believe they sent apprentices after us! This is ridiculous! They think we're that weak just because we haven't fought for a good long while?"

"This is just pathetic," the scraggy said, staring incredulously at the mortified apprentices. "I'm so hurt. They think that just because I didn't evolve yet they can take care of me with apprentices. It's so blasphemous I can't even find words for what I wanna say."

"Okay, they've annoyed me enough," Shido said. "Let's go!"

In a flash, Shido had summoned his sword and spun it around in a circle, creating a green tornado of sorts with razor-sharp leaves flying everywhere. It spun in place for a while, gradually increasing in size, until it flew towards the gurdurr and the scraggy. The scraggy jumped out of the way sloppily, his baggy pants dragging him down, while Akio simply deflected the tornado with his steel beam. The leaf tornado flew back to Shido's general direction, and the snivy quickly ducked. The tornado passed by harmlessly, although it did strike a tree down.

Mirai, on the other hand, had pounced on the scraggy as soon as it had moved. Landing right on its back, she drew her nails across his pale yellow shirt. The sound of fabric ripping registered in the scraggy's ears, and he shot up in an instant, yelling and screaming obscenities. Before the axew could react, he had balled up his fist and slammed it straight to her gut, causing Mirai to tumble backwards and hit her head on a rock. Dazed, she attempted to stand up but simply stumbled forward and landed on her stomach.

"Ow," she muttered. "Stupid blond."

"Mirai!" Shido gasped. "Are you–"

_"__Watch out!"_ The telepathic voice echoed in his head and, momentarily stunned, he failed to see the gurdurr barreling towards him beam-first at breakneck speed. The snivy, who thankfully had fast reflexes, rolled out of the way just in time. Akio crashed onto a boulder, breaking it into several pieces with his steel beam. _"Sheesh, you're not all that good at this, are you? Let me take care of the big guy. You help out your friend over there."_

Shido looked back at Akio, who had already gotten up, and panicked slightly. He dashed out of the way, but the riolu and the eevee had already gotten around to restricting the gurdurr's movement. A big smoke cloud erupted from the area, but it didn't reach over to where Mirai and the scraggy were, so he continued running over to them. Hopefully, the duo was strong enough to handle the Grade Two staged pokemon.

"Seriously?! What the hell is wrong with you?!" the scraggy shouted, and although Mirai was down, he still kept a safe distance away from her. "Thinking he could fight me head-on and then trying to arrest me…?! For one of those super-rare axews, you're pretty dumb!"

Shido caught a glimpse of Mirai's usual 'I-don't-like-you-so-I'm-gonna-murder-you' glares, before he stepped in front of his partner in a protective stance. "Badmouthing the fallen, you must've been dropped on your head as a hatchling!" Shido confidently said, although he had the slight feeling his legs were trembling.

The scraggy looked Shido up and down, before bursting out into laughter. "Man, you're almost as bad as the axew, if not worse! Or, y'know, maybe just the slightest bit better. But still!" he doubled over in another fit of laughter. "You gotta be kidding me! Badmouthing the fallen? That's a sure-fire way of making sure they _stay _fallen! Ahaha–"

Before he could continue his over exaggerated laugh, a stream of blue flames came from behind Shido, just narrowly missing the snivy himself. Jumping a few feet away in surprise, he stared admiringly at Mirai, who had shakily stood back up on her two wobbling feet. Crossing her arms, she gave the flailing scraggy a smirk. "_Who_ said badmouthing the fallen _stay_ fallen?"

"H-How'd you do that?" Shido asked. "I honestly thought you would have the worst headache in history and stay in bed for, like, years! Not just get back up like a super awesome pokemon!"

"Well, dear Shido, I hate to break it to you, but I'm actually a super awesome pokemon." Mirai flipped her hair sassily. The admiring glimmer in the snivy's eyes was instantly replaced by an unimpressed look. "'Twas a surprise I actually managed to breathe those fires again, though…" she murmured under her breath. "I didn't even know I could summon them again."

Before Shido could inform her about the fires, a blur of yellow and red and slammed into the axew, causing both Mirai and the scraggy to start rolling over and almost fall off the edge of the plateau. It seemed as if that was exactly what the scraggy had been aiming for, however, as he suddenly did a somersault and landed a few feet away from the edge neatly. Mirai just barely managed to grab a hold on the edge, although that looked like it was about to break off as well.

"Not so strong and mighty now, are you, axew?" the scraggy laughed, sounding like some sort of homicidal maniac. "I can just kick you off right now and by the end of the day, you'll be just a little speck on the ground!"

Mirai, firmly gripping the edge of the plateau, flipped herself over and jump-kicked the scraggy right on the face, sending him flying and crashing right on Shido. The snivy reflexively sent a leaf tornado right in front of him and the swirling tornado momentarily sucked the blond inside, spun him around, then threw him onto another boulder. This time, he stayed fainted.

The axew panted tiredly, collapsing on one knee and attempting to regain her bearings. Once she had glanced down to see how far she'd fall and noticed she couldn't even see the ground, it had been… terrifying. Mind-numbingly terrifying. She was frozen there, she couldn't move, and she couldn't even tear her eyes from below her. But then she had let her anger take over – _that stupid blond was the entire reason we had to come here in the first place! Stupid, stupid, stupid_ – and she didn't even fully register her actions before she had jumped and slammed her heel on the scraggy's face.

She remembered. Heights. She had a fear of heights… but her anger was stronger.

"Mirai, Mirai, Mirai, Mirai, are you okay?" Shido panicked. "Do you need to rest a bit? 'Cause it's okay if you do, I think the police are handling Akio just fine, you don't need to fight anymore, it's _okay_–"

The axew winced, effectively silencing Shido. Instead, the snivy took it upon himself to help out his partner and awkwardly carried her to a relatively hidden place away from the fight (which seemed to be on the police's end – while the smoke cloud had long cleared, he couldn't seem to find where they had gone), behind a couple of bushes. Placing her there as gently as he could, he looked over any of the injuries she might have gotten, and he found lots, as expected; cuts all over her arms and legs, a bruise on her stomach, and two or so head wounds. He was no audino, but he was pretty sure she wasn't getting back up for at least a day or two after this.

When he turned her over (as slowly as he could; Shido tried to ignore the grunts of pain from her) to inspect her back, he saw quite the large scar that covered almost her entire back. It wasn't a normal one, he was certain, by the size and by the almost reddish coloring it had. A bit flustered, the snivy quickly averted his eyes away from her back and lowered himself so that he was looking eye-to-eye with the tired axew.

"Mirai?" he asked softly once more. "You're… not okay, yeah, I see that… but… tell me what you're feeling? Headache, back pain, stinging, anything?"

Her half-lidded eyes blinked sleepily at the snivy. "… Everything you just said," she muttered after a while. Shido let out a sigh, but the jittery kind, the sigh that one would make when they had absolutely no idea what to do.

"What am I going to do with you…?" Shido mused to himself. He wasn't a chansey or an audino, pokemon who had the ability to conduct first-aid like a second nature; he was just a snivy, a grass-type.

He turned his gaze to the battle near the first cavern entrance. It was getting more intense now, after the riolu had revealed herself to Akio and started leaping all over the place and using different kinds of attacks to take down the gurdurr. The eevee was just barely recognizable by the way she was simply just a brown blur by now, speeding everywhere and occasionally distracting Akio enough for the riolu to make a break in his defense. Shido could also see how she expertly wielded the staff, with the light glinting off of it and everything…

… Of course! Sunlight! It was sunny today; perfect! Even as a grass-type and with such a low level as he, he could still perform basic synthesis! He had learned that in class before; almost all grass-types had the ability to use synthesis, which was to gain power from the sun. If near injured pokemon, they could also transfer some of the sun's energy to them as if they were a plant pokemon. He could do this!

Slowly bringing Mirai out to a sunny area that still managed to hide them away from the gurdurr's line of sight, Shido readied his palms. He was sure they were sweating a lot from what he was about to do; while he _had_ learned about the synthesis ability, he had never actually tried it on anyone but himself. With great difficulty, he shut his eyes, thrust his open palms to be positioned right on Mirai's back, and summoned the power of the sun.

Since he couldn't see anything, he had to concentrate extremely hard on manipulating the sunlight to do _exactly_ what he wanted it to do. He felt his hands burning with the sun's energy, and he felt slightly renewed through the arms area – _no!_ He shouted to himself. _No! Not me. I don't need it. Mirai does! Heal Mirai! _Now!

He felt a searing-hot sensation near his hands, now, and all the energy he had in his arms two seconds ago seemed to be transferred to what he was holding now; Mirai. He felt the sunlight wash over his hands, be transformed into energy by his abilities, then wash over the axew's body as if it were an oran berry. A few minutes later (though, he thought, it felt more like hours), the burning feeling in his hands faded away into a warm heat enveloping his entire arm area, and he supposed the synthesis had finished. Hesitantly, he removed his hands away from Mirai's back and opened his eyes slightly.

And almost choked when he saw that Mirai now looked perfectly fine, save for the large scar on her back. The axew had fallen asleep, so Shido tried not to disturb her, but when he looked back at where he was _sure_ a purplish bruise had been on her stomach before, it now looked completely normal. When he inspected her head, it looked fine again. Even her glasses had been cleaned.

He looked back down at his two hands, then flinched. They were a bright red and ached, as if he had absorbed her injuries himself. Well, it was fine. It'd go away. At least he had managed to help Mirai, even with his adequate synthesis abilities.

… Was what he thought, but when he looked back at the Mirai now and the Mirai with the injuries previously, he couldn't believe this had really been his first time to heal someone else with synthesis.

He carried the axew back into the bushes and peeked out to observe the battle. It had obviously gone into the police apprentices' favor, as Akio had collapsed on his stomach and his steel beam lay next to him, cracked in several places. The riolu was panting tiredly and didn't seem to be publicly broadcasting any telepathic messages, while the eevee looked as if she was used to running around everywhere and was timidly lecturing the gurdurr. The snivy leaned in closer to hear.

"– A-and you _know_ you shouldn't be d-doing this!" the eevee said. "Tricking other pokemon to get you expensive items and sell them to the black market… that's horrible! D-D-Downright cruel! T-That's why if you e-ever do it again, we'll tell our superiors you need to be stopped!"

_What_? They weren't going to arrest him? Shido's eyes widened as he cautiously crept out of his hiding place to see what they would do next.

The riolu looked exasperated. "For the love of all things good and holy– _Sakura_, I thought we've properly established that second chances aren't things police give out like candy! Strict! You've gotta be strict!" Since Shido could hear it this time, it looked like the riolu was speaking openly through her telepathy, much like others when they say something normally.

"O-Oh! But Caitlin… this gurdurr doesn't look like a truly bad pokemon… I'm sure something just happened to him to make him this way… if we give him a second chance, I'm sure he'll atone for his sins!"

Caitlin – the riolu, probably – sighed noiselessly. "Oh, well, whatever. Fine, fine. What about the scraggy, then, huh? He's got a criminal record and has been hunted by the Police Force for two years!"

"Mister Kumo can take care of him!" Sakura cheerily said, before turning around to face the cavern entrance. "Won't you, mister Kumo?"

There was silence for a bit, but a figure eventually emerged from the Mystery Dungeon, scaring all conscious pokemon in the area that wasn't Sakura. "He could be useful for something," the ariados said, eyeing the fainted scraggy. "Though… he might be a little annoying to work with. I'll get him back, so just tell these two to take care of everything else." With that, Kumo grabbed the scraggy's leg and dragged him off, disappearing back into the cave. Caitlin, speechless, turned to look back at the confused, yet smiling, Sakura.

"I'm not even gonna ask," the riolu said after sometime, then turned her attention to the two timburrs that had come right after Kumo had left. "So, you two… are you gonna do anything? We're just about done here, and we're gonna go back to base soon. Anything you need?"

"Not really, no," the older one said. "We just need to talk to boss for a while, y'know? Or… are ya gonna arrest him already?!" He jumped, biting his fingernails nervously.

"We're letting him off the hook," Sakura responded, completely disregarding Caitlin's 'for now' remark. "If there's nothing else, we'll go now. Take care of your boss!" With a courteous bow, she and Caitlin headed back to the cave, leaving the timburrs and their boss alone.

Akio stared maliciously at the timburr brothers. "Daichi… Takeshi… you sold me out to the police?" he rumbled.

The younger one, Daichi, winced. "N… No… No, boss, that's not what we wanted! We just… I mean, you've been like this ever since that day! We don't want that anymore. We don't want you to just drown your sorrows in alcohol every night again… we just… just…" he broke into tears before he could finish.

Takeshi, the older brother, took care of it, patting his younger brother's shoulder sympathetically. "We just want to work with you again, just like the old days where we always worked together happily. Like a dream come true, y'know, boss?"

The gurdurr looked shocked. He was speechless, until he morphed his expression into a nasty scowl. "Tch! You know it's never going to happen. What's done… can't be undone. I can never go back again." With that, he went off and went deeper inside the Mystery Dungeon. Shido slunk just out of sight, then once Akio was safely inside, walked back out of the bushes. The timburrs jumped at the sight of him, but calmed down once they saw the snivy.

"Oh, it's you," Daichi murmured, his voice breaking. "W-What is it?"

"Akio… what was that all about? He was fooling pokemon into bringing those little rocks… just for the scraggy to snatch 'em off at the last minute and repeat?" Shido asked. "It's a little… confusing. I thought your boss was a good man… but… what happened? What happened that can't be undone?"

Takeshi turned to look at Shido, a slight glare on his face. A long scar ran down his left eye, which further emphasized his stare. However, it quickly faded once it was returned with Shido's determined expression and was replaced with a look of reminiscing. "… It… well, it was a pretty long time ago, y'know, and…"

"I wanna hear it," the snivy said firmly. "If Akio's gonna build us a house, then I wanna hear everything there is to hear about him."

Daichi gasped. "E-Even after all this? You're still…" he hiccupped. "You're still going to ask him to build you guys a house?"

Shido nodded. "Of course."

The two timburrs looked at each other, before an unsure smile made its way onto Daichi's face, contrasting greatly with the tearstains lining his cheeks. "Hear that?" he whispered, barely audible. "This can work. They can change him back to the better."

Takeshi returned the smile with a smaller one. "… Maybe." Turning back to face Shido, his smile gone and replaced with a thin line. "… Well, it happened like this, really."

"Boss was a pretty cool guy. He was a real good carpenter way back then, and everyone loved his work. We looked up to him, so we joined him as apprentices. It was a lotta fun, building lots of things and seeing the happy faces of our clients. It left a good feeling in our hearts and remained there for a long time.

"But then one day, boss was caught up in a rockslide while he was exploring a cliffside for materials. His back was hurt really hard, and he was rushed to the hospital around… ten minutes or so after the rockslide. He was healed and he could walk around fine, but… his work was never the same again. Whenever he tried to make a house or a building or anything, it just… wouldn't look as good as it had been last time. It was like his back ruined anything he did. We're still pretty inexperienced, so we couldn't help much either.

"He was really disheartened after seeing his works. He started drinking a lot, and sometimes pulling all-nighters just staying in the inn and drinking the night away. Then… then the worst thing happened, and a pokemon came."

Daichi sniffled.

"A pokemon?" a sudden voice came, and Shido jumped ten feet in the air when he heard it. Looking beside him, he saw that Mirai had woken up and was casually standing there like she had been there ever since the beginning. However, she didn't seem as if she was particularly surprised about the snivy's reaction and pressed further. "Who's this… pokemon?"

"I don't really remember," Takeshi replied apologetically. "He just looked… creepy, somehow, unnerving in the way that makes you wanna stay really far away from him."

Mirai frowned, but gestured for the timburr to continue.

"So anyway, this pokemon came to Post Town, asking for a house. Boss had a clear mind back then, and he was really happy when he heard someone was asking for a house. He called us and made us work to the very bone making that house. We worked like never before, and… and it was really fun, but…

"But when the pokemon saw the final result, he looked… bored, or unimpressed, like that. He criticized each and every aspect of it and told us that it wasn't even livable." Takeshi winced. "I mean, sure, it wasn't the best, but it sure wasn't the worst, either. But that pokemon, after talking bad about it, he tore that house down from every material that we used, from some vines to the rarest rocks we had found."

Shido gasped. "No way!"

"He did. Well, if it was just our workmanship that was bad, we'll have to live with that. But then he revealed to us that he wasn't actually looking for a house… from the very start, he just wanted to toy with us."

The younger timburr stifled another sob.

"W-Wow." Mirai's eyes were the size of saucers. "That's… harsh."

"It was." Takeshi's eyes had darkened and dulled to show no emotion at all. "Boss… he was never the same after that. The pokemon left, sure, and he never came back again, but… the mental damage had been done and all, and boss's heart was crushed. He drank more and more frequently, rivaling mister Kumo even, and he's a mess every night, crying and sobbing and yelling really loud. We can't even sleep sometimes, and when we see him in the morning, his eyes are really red and he looks really angry and sad. It's horrible.

"Then… then Yoichi, the scraggy, y'know, he came in here after running away from the police and told boss to help… and… and boss, he was so deep in his sorrows he just accepted right away when he heard he could get money this way… and… it started.

"When we heard of it, we tried to talk boss out of it, saying that it wasn't good for him, but he wouldn't listen. He said that this was the only way he was going to be able to make a living for himself in this 'messed-up, rotten world' and that we should be thankful he was giving thirty percent of the money to us to share. We… We didn't even care about the money. We just wanted our old boss back, the boss who would work with us and could build anything and everything, no matter how bad they were.

"He's been doing this for more than two months, and we've… we've had enough of it." Takeshi's voice broke. "We're so tired of all this faking and scamming and whenever he finds a new victim it just breaks our hearts. Sometimes the weight of what we're doing hurts so much we can't sleep at night and it's really hurting. We… Can we ask for your help?"

There was silence for a long while, when Shido lifted his gaze from the ground. "Of course," the snivy said quietly, but soon, his eyes took on a determined expression, and he faced the duo properly, smiling crookedly. "Of _course_! Of course we'll help him! And… And after that…"

He grinned widely, and although there were tears pricking the corner of his eyes, he showed sincerity in his smile. "And after helping him and picking him up from the depths of despair, he better build us a house!"

* * *

**To StarryNight: Keep reviewing like that and I'm going to love you a lot.**

**To everyone else? Hello there! So, new chapter, new feels, aaaand... a battle scene right at the very start. I both love and hate writing battle scenes. Sigh.**

**Also, starting from tomorrow, school is gonna take over my life again, so I might put on a three-month-break for everything ever and limit updates to weekends (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). I was also gonna write Rainy Season, but I decided on prioritizing this one, since more people read it anyway. Huh.**

**Also: I'm planning on a little something, but for now, which timburr brother do you guys like better? Daichi is a cutie crybaby while Takeshi is a serious-business shounen-manga-hero. Go ahead and review your votes.**

_**Marei, 5/1/14**_


	5. Of Battles and more Gurdurrs

**By the by, OC Submissions are closed! Below, you can clearly see how many OCs I need to squeeze in here, along with a secret additional two, so, yeah. But the people who have already asked questions like 'can I submit an OC right now?' or whatever can still submit their OCs via PM.**

**I spent the entire day making, like, 7/8ths of this chapter. :P Enjoy.**

* * *

_Hazy Pass – Floor 7_

The timburrs agreed to join Mirai and Shido for a while until they reached Akio, who was probably at the deepest part of Hazy Pass by now. Fighting off Wild Pokemon was much easier this time around, and Mirai and Shido slacked off by the slightest bit. They had just fought against an outlaw, so they figured they deserved the rest.

While Daichi and Takeshi shared hissed whispers between themselves, Shido babbled on about how the gurdurr may or may not be a bad pokemon. "I mean," he started. "He started drinking, which is bad, right? But then mister Kumo drinks, too, so maybe it's just a hobby. Oh, wait, doesn't it kill your body? Alcohol, I mean. Oh. But then Akio started tricking other pokemon. Which is bad. I think. Wait! Of course it's bad. But, but, he only did it because he had to. Plus, he was really sad. So I think he did that without really thinking he was doing bad things, and only because he had to. But he still tricked lots of pokemon, so does that mean he's bad…?"

"Oh, just make up your mind, already," Mirai muttered. "I'm tired of hearing your incessant blabber."

Shido frowned slightly, and remained quiet after that.

The axew hesitated, stole a glance at the glum-looking snivy, and sighed exasperatedly. "… Okay, _fine_, say whatever." His head perked up, and a smile graced his face immediately. "But about something, you know… helpful. Like, our house."

"Yeah! Our house!" he exclaimed happily. "That's right, we need to start thinking of a design for our house. What if we model it after you, Mirai?" he tilted his head. "Or maybe we should make it lots of shades of green. Who knows. Have any suggestions?"

"Grassy," she said simply. "Um… and a distinct feeling of draconic interference. That's what I got."

Shido smiled, clasping his hands together in excitement. "We could put, like, ghost fire torches in the hallway," he said. "Those that light up automatically. Mirai, do you know those?"

She shook her head.

"Well, it's not anything special… actually, it is. It's like fire from the chandelures, which are magicked so that they change color according to whatever their settings are. So for example you, like, change the settings to change the fires to red whenever an unfamiliar pokemon is near. When an enemy or something is right outside our house, you'll know that 'cause the fires will be super red. Like, blazing."

"Blazing," she repeated.

"Yeah. And then ghost fires also don't make smoke and they don't burn, so they won't be bad for any of us. They also light up automatically when someone enters the room they're in, so for example there are ghost fire torches in your room? Then when you go in, they light up with their purplish-bluish light thing." Shido nodded. "Mhm. That's about it. I think they sell some in the department store in cheaper prices, but if we go over to the blacksmith's, we could probably get some higher quality fires from Kuri…"

Mirai cocked her head slightly to the side. "Kuri… y'mean the white-head-guy, the chandelure, with the rhydon?"

"Yeah, him. Nice, I guess. Pretty short temper, though."

Just then, a flicker of blue-green light came in their vision, and Daichi brightened up. "A rest area!" he exclaimed happily, rushing to get into the protective barrier. He had several bruises and scratches from handling the Wild Pokemon, so he was clearly eager to rest up a bit.

And then there was a flash of blue and red, and Daichi's body was lying limp on the ground, inches away from the barrier. A wooper, its eyes an insane milky white, stood over him, cackling and foaming at the mouth slightly.

"_No_!" Takeshi yelled, running forward and smacking the wooper away with his beam. It skidded across the rough floor before stopping just before it hit a jutting rock. The timburr was at his brother's side in an instant, checking his heartbeat and trying to calm himself down.

"Daichi, Daichi, Daichi _no_, please, please wake up…" he pleaded, staring down at the still pokemon. "Please don't leave me…"

_There's no sunlight here,_ Shido cursed. _I can't heal him with synthesis… what can we do?_

Mirai soundlessly carried Daichi up and went inside to the Rest Area, followed by the hesitant Shido and the stunned Takeshi.

_Hazy Pass – Rest Area_

The axew set Daichi gently on the ground, flinching when he didn't even grunt. Shido rushed over, bending over the timburr and furrowing his brows, while Takeshi hung at the side, still shock-still and murmuring things under his breath.

"Shido," Mirai said, surprising the snivy as she had never really called him by name before. "I'm gonna try something really, really stupid, but you have to promise me that you'll do exactly as I say, alright?"

Shido nodded mutely.

"Okay." Mirai looked back down at Daichi. He had broken out into a strange cold sweat, which could hopefully mean he was still alive. With great reluctance, she stepped backward a few inches and closed her eyes, focusing once more.

_Sun,_ she thought. _Sun. Shido needs sunlight to do the healing thing again. Certain pokemon can summon the power of the sun… come on, then…_

She felt her nails digging through her flesh as she clenched her fists hard, her eyes forced shut. She could just _feel_ something warm flickering in her palms, there, not there, and then suddenly there again– no! It's not there? There…?

_Focus_, she yelled at herself. _It's only a flicker now. Stronger. Stronger… as strong as the sun… hot, hot, hot hot hot hothothothothothot!_

Mirai felt a burst of intense burning heat erupt in her clenched palms, but even when she felt like her very skin was melting away, she held. She kept her fists clenched, refusing to let the heat out just yet… like the fires.

_That's right. Fire. As hot as fire, hotter than fire, hotter than the hottest fire! Burn! Let it burn! Everything needs t – ! ! !_

She let loose, along with a gasp for breath (she hadn't noticed she had been keeping her breath in for an unbelievably long amount of time), and suddenly the entire area lit up with a bright light above them. It shone down on the four of them, so hot it almost made Shido shrivel up like a dried leaf. Mirai took a couple more deep breaths to steady herself – she had the worst headache in the history of headaches, and her blood was pounding away in her head. She wanted to just lie down on a soft bed and sleep for days.

"S-Sunlight!" Shido gasped. "Mirai, are you–"

"I am," she just barely managed to yell back. "Now go do your thing."

"U-Understood!" There was a scuffle of feet, and she could hear something like something (or someone?) impacting against the ground. A 'gosh dang it' from Shido and then Mirai twitched her nose; dust? Ew. No.

"Daichi?" she heard Shido ask after a good few minutes. "Are you okay now?"

A groan. "I'm… fine, I think. What… What happened? I don't remember…"

"_Daichi_!" A loud thumping of feet on the floor, and Daichi's sentence was cut off from the sudden exclamation. "Oh, Arceus, Daichi, I'm so glad you're okay," a muffled voice cried. "I don't what I would have done if you had d-died or something. Arceus. Oh, thank Arceus."

Mirai breathed another sigh of relief as she let herself drift off to sleep. She could still hear the timburr brothers' sniffles in her dreams.

* * *

When the axew awoke, she heard the distinct sound of crackling fire. Sleepily forcing her eyes at least half-open, she looked around to catch a glance of a pitifully small bonfire surrounded by the two timburrs and Shido. Daichi and Takeshi were both asleep, while Shido was fighting the overwhelming urge to just fall asleep, no matter if he fell in the fire.

"Hey," she said, crawling over closer to him. The snivy, futilely blinking the sleepiness from his eyes, nodded in acknowledgement. "It's already night?" she asked. "I didn't think it had been that long."

"Time goes by faster if you're in a Mystery Dungeon," Shido explained softly. "Luckily, Takeshi brought a Mystery Clock with him, so we decided to plunk down and take a quick nap before continuing on to find Akio."

Mirai nodded. "Right. This Mystery Clock, I bet… it's a special clock that tells the time even if you're in a Mystery Dungeon. And normal clocks or whatever don't work in a Mystery Dungeon because it messes the clock's system up. … Doesn't it?"

Shido managed a weak grin. "Mhm. Wow, Mirai, you're better at this than I thought, aren't you?"

"It's not like that. It's really more of inference from the name alone."

"Still." A yawn escaped his mouth, and the snivy's head bobbed in sleepiness. Despite that, however, he stood up and stretched his arms and legs, trying to look presentably awake. "I guess we should go, now. Akio must be waiting. Could you wake the timburr brothers up? I'll go ahead and make sure the coast is clear." With that, he headed off to the edge of the Rest Area.

"Yeah, okay." Mirai went over to the dozing timburrs, poking Takeshi on his nose. "Hey. Wake up, you two, we're going already."

"Nn…?" Daichi yawned, rubbing his eyes as he slowly sat up. "Wha…? We're going already? But I'm still so sleepy…"

Takeshi groaned, rolling over. "Give me a break… it's been ten minutes, how am I going to get any decent sleep with ten minutes…?"

"It's actually been two hours," Shido called out.

Mirai stared down at the timburr, smirking. "You heard him."

Takeshi let out a resigned sigh, before slowly getting up, pulling Daichi along with him, ignoring his younger brother's mumbled protests. "Alright, alright, we're up," he said, just barely suppressing a yawn. "Where to now?"

* * *

_Hazy Pass – Floor 8_

"I think this is the last floor of this Mystery Dungeon," Daichi said tentatively.

Mirai raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?" she asked, not unkindly.

The timburr fiddled with his fingers uncomfortably. "… I've… been here before…"

The axew took the hint and kept silent, simply trailing behind Shido once more as he led the way. It was unnervingly quiet; the snivy had said it was more likely for the Wild Pokemon to ambush one underneath the cloak of the darkness, so they had to attract as least attention as possible. A group of four Team Pokemon had a very strong scent, they soon found out, though, as several woopers and sewaddles had tackled them throughout their trek through the last floor.

Finally, Shido stumbled against something and tumbled down into the ground, making loud, bumping noises. Kiddy curses rang out throughout the entire fall down the supposed stairs, and once he reached the bottom, a groan came from below. "… Yeah, the stairs and trapdoor sure are down here," he announced, clearly irritated.

After carefully descending the stairs through the bleak darkness, Shido opened the trapdoor, let them all jump out as quickly as possible, and shut it. They had arrived at the very end of Hazy Pass, on a cliff jutting out to face the sky. There, a huge, burly figure stood, steel beam at the side.

"If worse gets to worse, you guys might have to fight him," Takeshi said. "And, well… we'd rather not, if that's okay with you. We'll come into the scene when we need to."

Shido, although looking a bit hesitant at the reduced manpower, nodded. He started to walk over to where Akio stood, when Daichi's soft voice echoed to him.

"Be careful," the young timburr quietly called out. "Please."

The snivy and axew glanced at each other, before sharing some sort of message between themselves and confidently strode towards the gurdurr. It was obvious he had heard them coming, though, as he started talking before he had turned around to face them.

"It's you two, isn't it?" he rumbled, picking up his beam. Shido gulped. "I can't believe you two runts went all the way out here. And for what? To punish me or whatever?" He turned around, the moonlight shining on his face, making him look more threatening than ever. Mirai instinctively backed away a bit, knowing he wouldn't be easy. "Well, then, fine! Fight me with all you've got! I can't build anything good anymore… but fer some reason, I can still fight like the gurdurr I am! **_HUUUUAAAARGH!_**"

He smashed his steel beam in the middle of the two pokemon, causing both of them to jump in different directions, Shido to the left and Mirai to the right. The snivy whipped up a tornado of leaves, sending them flying at Akio and hitting him square on the forehead. The gurdurr roared and swung his beam at Shido, and it crashed at the side of his midsection.

He let out a cry of pain, blood flowing out from his mouth, and slammed against a large boulder at the edge of the cliff. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the dizzy sensation in his head, the aching feeling near his gut, and the _drip drip drip_ of the blood as he struggled to stand back up. Synthesis didn't work as good with moonlight, so he had to keep fighting – _I can't let Mirai do all the work, I can't, I _can't_ ever, _ever_, rely on anyone so much anymore, I have to _fight – and he stumbled over his own two feet and _I'm sorry_.

Mirai had seen Shido fall over, but she had no time to go over and check; she was too busy dodging fists and steel beams left and right. She decided to experiment a tiny bit and jumped on top of the steel beam while Akio swung it, effectively shocking him a bit and causing a split-second hesitation. She used that to her advantage and, after focusing every pint of anger, annoyance, and even just irritation she had towards the gurdurr, she let loose a stream of white-hot blue flames of a dragon's rage right on his face.

Akio roared, smashing his steel beam repeatedly towards a tree trunk and eventually making Mirai lose her balance and fall off. She tumbled towards the edge of the cliff and almost fell over, if not for gripping the very edge and just managing to stay in one piece. With great difficulty, she took a deep breath, jumped, rolled, and landed on the ground, a seemingly impossible feat for the acrophobic axew. Taking care not to fall, Mirai rushed towards the still-flailing Akio and jump-kicked him as hard as she could, which didn't affect him much, but caused him to grind his steel beam at the general direction of where Mirai had been.

The axew, however, had already scampered away to the other side of the gurdurr, using her lithe body to her advantage and climbing up to his head. Akio growled in annoyance, shaking his head like a wet lillipup in an attempt to get Mirai off. The axew, expecting it, held on tight, and with the most focus and concentration she had ever done, she shut her eyes and stabbed Akio on the nape of the neck.

A bright flash of light appeared on her wrist just seconds before her hand impacted against the gurdurr, and she pulled away in surprise. A disgusting, squelching sound echoed through the cliff and Akio howled, shaking violently – from what? She thought. She had no idea, but it was probably all her fault anyway – and he collapsed to the ground after one final roar.

Mirai, dizzy, pulled away from Akio's back and intentionally ignored the splattering of blood all over his neck and the rocks near him. She crawled over to where Shido was and gently eased him to a sitting position, his back against the boulder he had slammed against on, and checked his pulse.

Beating, she noticed. Good. As it should be.

Her eyelids felt horribly heavy, and her blood was pounding in her head, like before, which she really, really, _really_ didn't like. She almost fell asleep, but she felt a pair of hands on her back and a minute passed before she felt a bit better. Not good. Just better. At least she didn't feel as if she was going to die with each passing second.

"Mirai," she heard a voice rasp. "You're okay. You're okay… right?"

"I'm okay," she mumbled back. "I'm okay. I think I am, anyway." She paused. "You're the bigger 'Are you okay', you bumbling idiot. Are you? Are you okay? Please be okay."

"I think I'm okay," Shido said, his voice barely a breath. "Synthesis doesn't work as good in moonlight. But it still works at least. So I think I'm sorta okay."

"Good," she breathed. "Good."

"Mirai," Shido said again. "Mirai."

"I'm okay. Really."

"Mirai."

"What?"

"If you're really okay, please get up. Akio is still standing."

Silence. Then a low rumbling voice came from further. "A single axew is not enough to incapacitate me. Are you finished already? I expected more from you."

Mirai let out an involuntary growl. "Something is horribly, horribly wrong with you."

"I don't _care_ what you say either. I'm not, not, not building you guys a house or whatever. It'll be a stupid waste of time, money, and effort for both you and me." Akio paused. "I can't build anymore. I have this scar on my back and it's the bane of my existence. Just kill me now or arrest me or _whatever_ but I can't build. And I won't."

"Yes you _will_!" Shido exclaimed with a surprising amount of force for a weakened snivy. "Daichi and Takeshi told us everything. We know about the pokemon and the house and all, Akio. And we know it really hurts badly. I know. I've been there. Toyed with? Betrayed, deceived, etcetera? Been there, felt that. It's okay, Akio." His voice changed to a gentler tone. "It's okay. It gets better over time. But you know, you're only making it worse by tricking others to make them feel the same betrayal as that pokemon did to you."

Akio took a sharp intake of breath.

"If you had maybe, just maybe let it be, maybe everything could have gone so much better for you," Shido continued. "Maybe you could have just let it be. That pokemon was just tricking you and he was never even planning on living in a house anyway. You know? I bet that house looked great. I bet, since you and Daichi and Takeshi had poured your hearts into it, I bet it was the best house ever built in the history of pokemon. I bet everyone knew that, even the pokemon."

There was the unmistakable sound of a snivel.

"But he didn't want a house, okay? He didn't need one at all. So no matter how good your house might have been, he would still have torn it down to pieces. But that's not reason to give up your entire career as a carpenter. You remember the smiles and happy faces of your previous clients, back when you were still the best carpenter in town? Don't you remember those? Weren't those better payment than the money they gave you? Don't you ever want to see them again?"

"Oh, Arceus," Akio breathed. "Gods above, Arceus, what have I done?"

"Don't you see it now, Akio?" Shido pleaded, his voice near the breaking point. "What you have done was bad. But even the police apprentices forgave you. They gave you a second chance. You can still redeem yourself. It's okay, Akio. I promise you. Everything will be okay. You don't have to do anything. You've already been forgiven without needing to give anything in return. The one thing you need to do is to get those smiles back in their proper place once again. You can do that, can't you, Akio? With your pride as a carpenter… you can do that, right?"

"Boss," Daichi cried. "Boss."

"You're back now, right, boss?" Takeshi asked, his voice trembling.

"Oh, Arceus, you two," Akio said. "Arceus. You two are the best apprentices I could ever have asked for. I don't deserve any of this. Arceus _damn_ it. Let me hug you guys."

There was a loud sobbing that was quickly joined by two others. Mirai smiled and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

A yawn echoed through the inn room. "Oh, man, what time is it?" someone groggily asked.

"Don't know, don't care," a feminine voice replied, followed by the ruffling of blanket sheets as Shido flung them off of Mirai's curled up body. "AGH! SUNLIGHT! GO AWAY!"

"Wakey-wakey, Mirai," Shido sang. "Get up, get up! We're gonna build our house today!"

"No," the axew protested forcefully. "I'm not getting up. I _do not want _to get up. Leave me aloooone!"

Daichi yawned once more, sitting up on his bed and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "I can't believe this is what I have to wake up to every morning until we finish your house," he muttered.

"What was that?" Shido asked, and although smiling, looked strangely threatening. Daichi crawled back underneath the covers with a muffled 'nothing, sir'.

"I still cannot get over the fact that Daichi is with us now," Mirai exclaimed, rolling around on her bed until she had wrapped herself up with covers. "Seriously. Is he, like, our personal mailman now or something?"

"It means we can share hope with other pokemon with Daichi in our soon-to-be Team!" Shido cheered. "We can recruit someone else later on so we can get started as an official Team. But for now, the most important and hardest thing to do right now is to get you up and running."

"I will never be up and running," Mirai said firmly.

Shiemi, the swanna and signora of the inn, peeked out from the stairs. "Oh, you're all awake," she said serenely. All eyes turned to her, except for Mirai's. "Come on down for some breakfast now. I'm sure you're all hungry. It's pancakes with syrup and butter, but be sure not to disturb Kumo. He's in a particularly good mood today."

"How come?" Shido asked, smirking as he saw Mirai's head poke out from the blankets once she heard the word 'pancakes'.

Shiemi shrugged. "Akio getting better, I suppose. Hurry it on, now, or Takeshi and Taylor will finish everything."

"Gah!" With lightning speed no one would have expected, both Mirai and Daichi had flung themselves down the stairs, possibly hitting their heads along the way. Shido made his way down the stairs a bit more calmly, enjoying the noisy and fun atmosphere in the inn.

Akio was at his own table in the inn again, shoving spoonfuls of curry rice in his mouth, and Takeshi, Taylor, a squirtle, a totodile, and a rhydon. It was the first time Shido had seen the latter three, and while he did want to go and chat with them a bit, his stomach as his first priority. Taking a seat at the table beside the already-chowing-down Mirai, he lunged in for the few remaining pancakes left.

A few ways away, Kumo sat on a stool near the counter along with Shiemi, drinking peacefully. "I'm planning on something," he said bluntly. The swanna was unperturbed, continuing to clean the glasses recently used. "I've already got it all set out but I just need a little help."

Shiemi didn't even look at him before saying, "Please, Kumo, do not tell me you haven't seen the Teams that just arrived here from the other regions. They are flocking to Post Town like no tomorrow. There is so many of them it's worrying."

"That's what I'm aiming for, exactly," Kumo said, taking several gulps of his drink before continuing. "I've heard there are even pokemon who are looking for a Team of their own. It's just about time they get together, don't they? But I wonder who I'll take a look at first."

"Well, there's the cyndaquil and the mudkip," Shiemi suggested. "The panpour and the pansear, the pikachu and the tepig… hrm, and you certainly can't forget the ones here right now." Her eyes twinkled as she glanced towards Taylor, the squirtle, the totodile, and the rhydon. "Then there's the mienfoo, the treecko… hmm, who else?"

"You forgot the skorupi and the flaaffy," Kumo pointed out. "But otherwise, I think that's about it. Are you already thinking of what I'm thinking? I bet you are."

"Possibly." Shiemi smirked.

The ariados returned the smirk with a similar one. "There might be more coming, though. But for now, just come with me already."

"Alright, alright."

* * *

**Axews ****_can_**** learn Sunny Day, but via TM. I dunno. Ask Pokemon Database.**

**So, yeah! Here ends the Akio Drama Arc, as well as the fifth chapter of doom. No more OC Submissions, boo-hoo. Or woo-hoo for me, because ****_that is just too many dang OCs_****. On the bright side, it's much easier to think up Dangan Ronpa OCs. Heh. Sorry, not sorry.**

**By the way, I think I forgot to mention this, but Sakura and Caitlin belong to Rainbow, a guest. I would ask them more about their OC, but they don't have an account, so, oh well.**

**Now here's the exciting part! Companion Mode Chapters. Two after every arc (or, y'know, end of a plot point), and you get to see your favorite OCs (not counting yours, sadly, but that's because I might never reach a decision) do various things from day-to-day life to epic battles and whatnot! Votable characters so far are:**

**- Mirai & Shido**

**- Sakura & Caitlin**

**- Taylor**

**- Daichi**

**- Kumo**

**- and just about any other character introduced in the story so far. Note that the characters without a partner can be specified to have one in your review, like "Kumo & Shiemi" or "Daichi & Takeshi" or whatever. If I reach a standstill, I'll have them be partnered up with each other.**

**Now go on and review away, dears! Put your votes in your review as well. And keep reviewing like that, everyone. Reading them makes me feel really happy. /)w(\**

**PS: I ship Kumo and Shiemi and you CANNOT STOP ME. MUWAHAHAHA.**

_**Marei, 12/1/14**_


	6. Companion Mode: Kumo

**This was supposed to come, like, ten thousand years earlier, but I got sidetracked my playing my actual Gates to Infinity game. -laughs nervously-**

* * *

The swanna crossed her arms, letting out a soft sigh. "Are you done yet?"

A few minutes of silence came, when finally, Kumo opened the gates and strolled out easily, a smirk present on his face. "Yes, actually," he replied.

Shiemi nodded. "Good. About time. It's just _one_ Magnagate, Kumo, how long could it possibly take?"

"One Magnagate that needs special modifications and access to almost every other Mystery Dungeon there is out there." The ariados let out a tired sigh. "I hate Magnagates. I don't think I'll ever try and do something like that again. I was even planning on using that money for some high-quality alcohol…"

"You'll get twice as much money as you normally get after all I've done here, anyway," Shiemi scoffed, gesturing to the several bulletin boards, stands, and booths she had set up. "All by myself, too. And then you use up twice as much time setting up one modified Magnagate. Oh, Kumo."

"I was never good with Magnagates," he mumbled, but even that argument sounded weak in his ears. Eager to change the topic, he said, "What are you off to after this?"

The swanna tilted her head in thought. "Hm. I was called to substitute for a teacher who's took the day off sick, so I suppose I'll be heading off to the daycare later on." Her eyes twinkled as she returned her gaze to Kumo. "I suppose _you'll_ be setting up the notes as well, yes?"

Kumo stared at her for a moment, clueless, before he caught on and groaned. "I hate you."

"The feeling is mutual."

* * *

_'__Looking for a Team! – I'd like to join someone's Team. Recently, I've started wanting to get stronger, and I think the best way to do that is to join a Team. Or does anyone want to make one with me? My name's Miyuki, a mienfoo, and you can find me in the Dojo most of the time. Come see me! –Miyuki'_

Kumo stared at the note in his hands, before sighing and reluctantly pinning it up on one of the already-filled bulletin board. There were at least four boards in all, and this was his third. The other two were already completely filled up with notes that very few of them weren't covered by another note.

Most of the notes were requests for a Team, to find a lost pokemon or item, or to apprehend an outlaw. There were rewards, of course, so it was easy to find a pokemon who would handle all the note-taking and the Magnagate management. While it was a bit of a pain putting up all the notes himself, he could just hire another pokemon in the future to do it for him, or perhaps the Team's new helper, Daichi. Yeah, maybe Daichi. Much more convenient, he told himself.

After around another ten minutes, the fourth board had been half-filled, and the box of notes he had was completely empty. Proud of his work, he grabbed the bottle of alcohol next to him and chugged it down until it was halfway finished. Pinning up notes was more tiring than he thought.

"Oh, mister Kumo!" a voice came from behind him. Turning around, he saw the two police apprentices – Sakura and Caitlin, was it? The eevee was smiling brightly, and at the same time, looked politely confused. The riolu, Caitlin, simply looked bored. "What are you doing, mister Kumo?" Sakura tilted her head.

"Something beneficial." _And money-making,_ he added in his mind. "It's a bunch of job requests from other pokemon who need help. These should be good training for you two, so you should probably take a lot of them while you can. These are gonna run out soon, whether there's a lot or not." _And the money. Do not forget the money._

"Ooh. I see." Sakura, smiling sweetly, turned to look at her riolu partner. "Hear that, Caitlin? We can get better at this police thing! Let's go try one out!"

"Huh?" Caitlin's head snapped back up, as if she had been dozing off. "Oh. Uh. Yeah, sure. Totally." With a sloppy bow to the ariados, she followed Sakura off to the bulletin board. "How do we do this… whatever we're doing?"

"Just rip a note off the board and give it to Takeshi, that timburr over there," Kumo instructed, pointing at said timburr sitting behind the wooden counter. He looked a bit disgruntled at having to do such a 'secretary-ish' job, but he had decided long ago that money was probably the more important one at work here and accepted. "He'll fix up the Magnate behind that Request Gate over there," Kumo pointed at the wooden gates, currently firmly closed. "And you guys can enter the Magnagate to wherever Mystery Dungeon is needed. Or, if the request is something simple and doesn't need the involvement of the Mystery Dungeon, you can simply have the note stamped and take it with you to Post Town and do whatever needs to be done."

Sakura nodded. "I see, I see… how cool!" She grinned. "We can get some money and a better reputation this way, Caitlin! Hm, let's try, um… this one?" On her tiptoes, she ripped off a paper from the very top and skimmed over it. "Reward is… t-t-three thousand?!"

"_Three thousand?!_" Caitlin telepathically yelled. "Oh my Arceus, we need to do that. Like. Right now. Right this very second. Come on, let's go, hurry up so we can get that wonderful money!"

"I got it! Got it, got it!" In a flash, they had the note given to Takeshi and the timburr, a little stunned by their enthusiasm, activated the Magnagate to lead to Ragged Mountain. Within seconds, the duo was gone, having teleported to the Mystery Dungeon.

There was a short silence between Takeshi and Kumo, before the timburr turned to look at the ariados. "Are you going to…?"

"Eighty percent, yes." He turned around and walked off. "Tell anyone who comes along what it is they need to do. I'll be off, now."

"To miss Shiemi, I'm guessing?"

"Shut up."

* * *

"Kumo," Shiemi said, slightly surprised at his presence. "You're here."

"I know." He turns to look out the window, where several small children were playing. Squinting, he spots a peculiarly colored pokemon sitting alone on a bench, head hung. "A shiny?"

"Slugma," the swanna replies. She hesitates. "No one likes him. So in return he doesn't like anyone. He's proving hard to deal with, especially since he doesn't have any friends to talk to… I have no idea what to do with him."

"Huh." He looked out the window once more, then raised an eyebrow when a young girl – a green color theme, a bulbasaur or a chikorita, maybe, but he hardly saw those in Post Town anymore – approached the slugma. The girl seemed very upbeat and cheerful and eventually succeeded in dragging the reluctant shiny off with her. "Well. My presence is just so good it creates friendship. You should be thankful."

She scoffed. "Never." A pause. And then, "That was Chii. A chikorita, if you couldn't tell. Nice girl, if not overbearing sometimes."

"I see."

A silence stretches between the two of them, Shiemi returning to her paperwork and Kumo quietly observing the children at the playground. He saw that Chii and the slugma had gone to play with a flying-type pokemon (judging by the wings) and what looked like an abra. A few ways away, a mudkip and an elekid were play fighting while their respective friends cheered them on. The mudkip tackled the elekid down to the ground and it remained still, losing the will to fight, and there was a loud cheer among the mudkip's group. A few pokemon hesitantly shoved a few gold coins in other's hands, grumbling under their breath.

"Shiemi," a voice, muffled from the door, calls out. It opens and a flurry of gray and white tumbles in, a gray dress trailing along behind her. She stands up and it's Chiyeko, unsurprisingly, identifiable by her big, twitching cinccino ears. "Shiemi, remember that appointment of yours? Yes, the one with the aggron steel. Akikazu's here with the steel, so you might as well come over." She spots Kumo behind her just after she finished talking, and jumps a bit. "Ah, um, oh. Hello, Kumo." She bows politely, smile ever present, then heading outside.

"Aggron steel?" Kumo repeats as soon as the gray fabric is out the door. "Did Akio run out?"

The swanna sighed. "Yes." She says no more, choosing to simply glare at the pitifully thin wallet she had brought out, before standing up and opening the door. She pauses, then turns back to look at the still staring Kumo. "… Are you just going to stand there forever?" she asks, and it's quite clear to the ariados that she's trying to act irritated and it's, either unfortunately or fortunately (it depends on who you ask), not working as good as she might think.

"Maybe." Despite his words, he follows Shiemi outside.

* * *

"Yeah, thanks. Just call if you're gonna give me business," Akikazu muttered, before stomping off, his armor clanking. Shiemi sighed down at the heavy package she was now left with, then starting to drag it north.

"Where are you going?" Kumo asked, shoving his hands in his sweater pockets. Shiemi watched him for a moment, then looked away haughtily.

"… None of your business," she responded. "I was just… going to put this in the inn. Akio's off searching for materials, so I can't give it to him personally. Too much trouble."

He nodded, unmoving as he watched the swanna drag the sizeable package to the general direction of the inn. After a couple minutes, he sighed and grabbed the brown cloth from her hands, easily swinging it over his shoulder and heading off to the inn without looking back. He heard an exasperated sigh behind him, the scuffling of feet, and then later, a resigned sigh. Then the soft white color started trailing along beside him, and a smirk found its way on his face.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the library, there was a strange meeting of sorts.

Celestia stood behind the counter, watching with slight amusement at the absolute overload of visitors today. Besides the regulars, almost nobody came in anymore, which made the gothitelle very disappointed. She had had high hopes for the newcomers in Post Town when she heard about them last week, but she hadn't received any customers at all.

Well, until now.

First, there was Taylor the rufflet and a couple others who came in just about every other day. Then a skorupi who introduced himself as Barrett, and then a flaaffy named Emiko, and _then _a Team from the other region with a cyndaquil named Quil and a mudkip named Kip. There was a slight pause there, but then no less than _five_ came in all at once, chatting happily with one another, which _greatly_ surprised Celestia. A squirtle, a totodile, a rhydon, a mienfoo, and a treecko had come waltzing in, talking in perfectly toned down voices, which really did make Celestia's day so much better.

In contrast to the normal, peaceful silence that usually hung over the library, there was a soft ripple of cheery voices that knew how a library worked and actually _read_ for once and kept their voices down. The very thought of those three hooligans from before who had entered without a care in the world and knocked down _three_ bookshelves before finally leaving made Celestia bristle.

Beside her, the rufflet whistled. "'S lot of pokemon today, isn't there?"

She nodded, flipping the page of her book. "Indeed. Good, good; maybe this could attract a few more locals to actually pay attention to this place."

Taylor peered over her shoulder, then chuckled. "That one again?"

"It's impossible to get tired of."

"Whatever you say, princess." He perked his head up, then started. "Ah. The treecko's coming this way." A short pause. "It's _Alternate Evolutions_ this time. The last volume, too. This guy's cool."

Celestia politely closed her book, looking up at the spiky-haired young boy. "Good afternoon," she greeted, glancing at the cover of the book he had presented on the counter. "So it is _Alternate Evolutions_… it's a wonderful series, isn't it, dear?" She scanned the book's bar code and handed the treecko the record book and a pen.

"Truly," he replied pleasantly, signing _Lyon_ on the empty space and _Treecko_ under the species column. "I did very much enjoy reading when Ed had somehow managed to save Brielle from certain death. Regina just scares me."

She gently took the record book back, filed the name away for future reference, and nodded to show her interest. "True. That moltres frightens almost everyone." She handed the thick book back to him and smiled hospitably. "I hope you enjoy reading it. Ed and Brielle _do _make a good pair, don't they?"

He nodded, smiling. "Indeed they do." He outstretched his arm for a handshake. "It's a pleasure to meet you, my good fellow. My name is Lyon, what's yours?"

The librarian accepted the handshake and returned the smile. "Celestia Ludenberg. It's wonderful to have another young one who loves the art of books."

"Ah!" He starts a bit. "L, Ludenberg, now? Your last name? You have a last name? Does that…"

The gothitelle giggled softly. "Perhaps? You may want to get back to your friends, though. The squirtle really is quite fond of Sara. I think you two will get along if you bring the topic up."

"S, Sara?" He repeats, before mentally kicking himself for sounding clueless and dumb. "Erm. I mean. You… _couldn't_ possibly have known that prior to this conversation. This can only mean that you're a… a…"

"Future Guardian," she gently completed, then patting the stunned treecko on the nose. "Now, if you'll run off to your friends, you'll find that they utterly love two of your three most favorite bands as well. Off you go, now."

Lyon nodded obediently, scooping the book up in his arms and rushing off to the group he had come in with. Beside her, Taylor let out a sigh of – what? Amusement, maybe, or maybe just some kind of mixture of exasperation and tiredness. "You abuse that lil' ability 'a yours a little too much, princess."

"But he was such a gentleman," she said, opening up her book once more. "I just couldn't _resist_. He deserved a little happiness in his life, anyway. You can't blame me."

"Mhm, right." With that, he fell silent, his nose buried in the first volume of the _Forever_ trilogy. Half an hour passed until he closed the book and looked around expectantly, when a voice called out.

"_Eternal_ is on the second bookshelf from the left, third row from the top, fifth from the right," Celestia's melodious voice sang, and the rufflet thanked her before flitting off to the said bookshelf. The gothitelle smiled to herself, curling a strand of her long, black hair as she reminisced the days when she had read the entire five-book-series of _Alternate Evolutions _in three straight days and the _Forever_ trilogy in no less than six hours.

* * *

**A heads-up; Companion Mode chapters will be around 2k or so words long, and will usually contain cameos of several characters, whether or not they've already been introduced in the main story.**

**Ahh, here's the OCs from this chapter: Kumo (ariados), Sakura & Caitlin (eevee & riolu), Taylor (rufflet), and Lyon (treecko). The ones who've been named but haven't had a talking role/NPCs yet won't be mentioned here, but will probably be expanded in the next CM chapter.**

**Speaking of, vote for the next CM character! Same as before, not including Lyon because ****_spoilers_****. Send 'em in via PM!**

**But the official PSA: Congratulations, Coli Chibi! Looks like everyone utterly ****_loves _****Kumo, haha. Companion Mode the Second will have either Mirai & Shido, Sakura & Caitlin, Taylor, Daichi, aaaand... just about everyone else mentioned in the last chapter who isn't Kumo (or Shiemi, for that matter).**

_**Marei, 20/01/14**_


	7. Companion Mode: A Lot

**What I find hilarious is that I managed to fit in ****_THREE ARCEUSDAMN COMPANION MODES IN THIS SINGLE CHAPTER_**** which is probably why it took a little longer than usual (plus my new fanfic).**

* * *

Takeshi let out a sigh. His first day as a helper in Mirai and Shido's 'Paradise' had been more tiring than he'd expected. First, he had to help Daichi pin up the new notes that just kept coming in, then he had to sit behind a wooden counter for six straight hours while managing the Magnagate that didn't seem to want work at all.

But, well, the money. His promised salary was around ten thousand poke a month, and that was way more than any other part-time job he could possibly find. So he stayed. Reluctantly.

He had one more hour to go until Paradise closed for the day and he could finally catch up on some rest. Akio had let him sit there and manage the notes and Magnagate while he and (sometimes) Daichi would continue on the house. He estimated it would take around another week to finish, so Mirai and Shido were to spend the a few more days in Post Town's inn. The signora wasn't very pleased when she learned she had to let them stay in there for a discount, but agreed eventually.

The timburr had then learned on what exactly he was helping out in; the official construction of Paradise, a place where pokemon could hang out in for no cost at all and take job requests and help out other pokemon when needed. Bulletin boards where notes were pinned were set up in each corner of Paradise, and there were two beside his counter as well, so it was easier for him to fix the notes and activate the Magnagate. Once the house was finished, facilities would soon be built around it as well, so long as there was money and materials involved, of course.

So far, there had been exactly seven pokemon who had wandered in and decided to take a little peek at what exactly was happening in such a strange-looking place (even Takeshi had to admit that, and he _worked _in it). The most eye-catching couple was a duo made up of a luxio and a buizel, who had decided on taking a quick job request for scientists in the local laboratory in Post Town. Takeshi had caught _Team Azure_ from the luxio before they rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. He had shrugged. None of his business, anyway, and he'd get the money soon without them.

And right now, he was bored as all hell. He had almost absolutely nothing to do, as his task was to simply sit there and do whatever needed to be done. Since it was only the opening of Paradise and Kumo wasn't exactly the gossiping type (the timburr shivered at the mental image), no one had really heard about Paradise's existence at all. Only a few had come, but at least they had taken some pretty high-paying jobs. It had been incredibly amusing to see the eevee and the riolu's faces when they realized they'd only be getting twenty percent of the money promised.

In return, he got about half of two thousand four hundred, which was around one thousand and two hundred. Well, at least he didn't need to worry about material-gathering anymore, after a couple months of working in Paradise. Even if he wanted to quit, he had the feeling Akio wouldn't let him.

Another yawn. He would sleep, but there was the slightest chance a customer would come, and he couldn't risk losing one… even though he felt like he could fall asleep any second. He felt something cold drip on his arm and he drowsily looked up, flinching once another raindrop plopped straight in his eye.

Rubbing it off, he grumbled under his breath as he snatched a big black beanie from the counter drawer. Akio had given it to him for a birthday gift, and he decided it was good enough the world ever decided to rain. Which was now. He planted the beanie firmly on his head, sighing when it slid down his face and partially covered his eyes.

Just forty more minutes, Takeshi, he told himself. Be a good timburr and you'll get your money's worth.

* * *

"So if we can recruit one more pokemon… we get to be one of those official Teams or whatever?" Mirai cocked her head.

Shido nodded his head cheerily. "Mhm. It's raining right now, so we can't exactly go outside, but I've heard we can find a couple of interested pokemon in either the dojo or the library. I mean, Daichi keeps saying that the library is getting fuller and fuller each day. I think it's because of the new pokemon that are just _flocking _to town this week, y'know? I bet it's because of you, Mirai!"

"How come?" the axew yawned, knowing the snivy was in for another one of his informative rants.

"Well, being a Future Guardian means that you have this kind of… aura, y'know? Like, pokemon are easily attracted to you and all. You kinda have this scent about you that draws others to you. It's, like… yeah. Hey, maybe Kyurem'll come after you? Sometimes he sends other Future Guardians to pick potentials up, and sometimes if that potential is super-powerful, he'll come after you himself! I'd sure like to see him myself. He's one of the rare pokemon to be able to shift into his Other!"

"Other." It wasn't even a question, just a prompt for Shido to continue explaining about all the strange terms in the pokemon world.

Shido nodded enthusiastically. "Yep, yep! Other means the other form of a pokemon; the more animalistic one, the one that's ten times more powerful than our normal form! We adapted to this form because of the legendary humans, who are known to possess intelligence of all kinds. That's why we have cities and towns and all now, since humans have those too. Before, we pokemon used to be in our Other forms all the time, but a lot of us couldn't control out powers and ended up destroying some of our lesser towns, and even the rare whole cities!" He shivered at the thought. "Then we were alerted to the presence of humans. The wisest pokemon among all of us banded together and traveled to the human world via the strongest teleportation known to pokemonkind. When they came back, we were shocked! They had turned, appearance-wise anyway, into what they called humans! Pokemon adapted to their appearance as well, and it was very helpful, since it helped restrain our sometimes overbearing abilities and we managed to live much more peacefully."

The snivy breathed in deeply. "Man, that was a lot. I was one of the few who actually ever listened to History in my class, which is why I know that."

"Oh." Mirai stared dumbly at Shido, admiring the way he spoke about the tales and legends of pokemon lore as if it were the greatest treasures Arceus had given to them. It was really quite fascinating, the way he wove the stories together and managed to put an impact behind his words. If given the chance, the axew could have sat there and listened to him talk for days.

Shido tilted his head to the side, smiling pleasantly. "Anything else? Oh, no, maybe we could enroll you into Sunny Academy? It's one of the best schools I've studied in, and it was named after their founder, Sunny the legendary flareon. You know? They say he could burn legions of enemy pokemon in a single breath! And his sneezes were infernos that could set even the Empress Ho-oh ablaze! And–"

"Hold on. 'One of' the schools you studied in?" Mirai didn't want to believe it, but… "You mean… you actually studied in _multiple schools_?"

"Of course I did." Shido looked confused. "Why wouldn't I?"

Mirai honestly didn't know what to say to that, so she gestured for him to continue rambling on about Sunny the flareon and how he could command thousands of pokemon without breaking a sweat.

* * *

Six hundred poke for defeating a bunch of pokemon and rescuing a shuppet who probably couldn't find his way out of a paper bag. All in a day's work for police apprentices, Sakura and Caitlin.

Now, with their miniscule sum of money, the eevee and the riolu trudged back to the Police Force base not too far away from Post Town. Their mentor, an old venomoth who couldn't pronounce Sakura's name properly, had the shortest temper they had ever seen and was expecting them on or before six. It was way past seven thirty.

Today, Sakura was to carry the Treasure Bag, but it was almost overloaded with all the goodies they had unexpectedly found in Ragged Mountain. Feeling a bit sorry for the panting eevee, Caitlin grabbed the bag from the protesting Sakura and slung it over her shoulder, wincing slightly at how heavy it really was. She forced herself to drag it all the way back to the base, which thankfully wasn't as far as it seemed (and looked).

Both pokemon practically collapsed once they set foot in the base, letting out low groans of exhaustion when they heard the dinner bell ring loudly. With great reluctance, they dragged themselves to the mess hall, and ended up having to sit at the very edge, where nearly all the food _wasn't_. The riolu took it upon herself to shove her way through, grab the plates, scoop what looked like an infinite amount of apples, gummis, and berries on them, then slave back to where Sakura had already fallen asleep, chin on the table. Caitlin placed the plate with more food on it in front of the eevee and proceeded to chomp down on a big apple.

"Caitlin!" An old, raspy voice hissed. The riolu didn't even have to look to know it was Baggan, their mentor and the most annoying venomoth they had ever met. "What do you think you're doing, returning home a hell of a lot later than I told you to?!"

"If it helps, we brought six hundred poke back with us," she snapped, shoving the money bag to the surprised woman. "Now leave me alone. I need to refill my blood supply. Damn drilburs… didn't know it was _their_ den, wish they'd just left us along…" she grumbled under her breath for a little more, shoveling food in her mouth like no tomorrow. She was hungrier than ever before; Ragged Mountain wasn't as easy as everyone said it was, apparently.

Eventually, Sakura woke up, and followed Caitlin's example in the rapid eating, though much calmer and politer. She also didn't spill juice down her chin, chuck an apple halfway through the table to symbolize 'shut up' towards a particularly noisy raticate, and she also didn't spill her orange juice all over her lap and curse like a sailor.

After dinner, the duo retreated into their bedroom (after a long, long lecture from Baggan, in which Caitlin fell asleep in her fourth sentence and Sakura in her _second_) and crashed onto the soft beds, sinking into the bedsheets and curling underneath their blankets with great appreciation to whomever thought up beds. They were asleep almost instantly to the pattering of rain outside their window, and they didn't bother to look outside, where the moon still shone despite the multiple storm clouds.

* * *

Mirai herself was having trouble sleeping.

Against her will, she had stayed up listening to the sound of the rain, which she really, really didn't like. Shido was already knocked out, curled underneath the blankets and snoring lightly, Daichi in the bed next to him. But Mirai? Nope, not her. Still awake, thank you very much.

She got up and hopped off the bed, making sure not to make a sound. The floorboards creaked slightly, but the two pokemon she had gotten attached to made no sign that they had heard. The axew made her way to the window, where the rain was raging on.

She'd recovered very few of her memories in the past few days; the fortune-telling thing, the books, the rain, friends (or, rather, her lack of any)… what else? There were a few more, but one stood out.

Human.

Yes, human.

No, it wasn't because of her newfound knowledge of the pokemon history, either. It just… stood out, somewhat, like it mattered. Just like _future_, where her name had come from. Maybe this meant something, too. Maybe she was actually a human, and not a pokemon. Or maybe she was a pokemon turned human? She didn't know. But _human_… that was another memory she couldn't comprehend. The others? Sure. But _future _and _human_ seemed to be the ones with the most importance above all.

And yet, she couldn't understand _why_. It was all just so very, very frustrating it made her want to tear out her hair and punch something, preferably the one who made her life so difficult.

She felt her eyelids getting heavier, despite the loud rain, and eventually, she fell asleep, chin on the windowsill as she dozed off peacefully.

The super-amnesiac axew didn't notice the pair of blood red eyes watching her every move from the shadows.

* * *

**My internet isn't even working properly and I'm so tired I could fall asleep on the keyboard right now and I wouldn't give a damn. Ugh. Well, good night. Expect the next chapter by March.**

_**Marei, 26/1/14**_


End file.
